


Godspeed, Young Traveller

by minazukihatta



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: And he's like over two thousand years old, Demigods, Dirty Talk, Gladiators, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Jealousy, M/M, Secrets, Sexual Tension, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, The one where Barry is actually a son of Hermes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:30:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minazukihatta/pseuds/minazukihatta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Oliver's timer finally zeroes out, it stops at a mysterious pizza boy with dark hair and sad eyes. But as Oliver spends more time about Barry Allen, he soon discovers that there is more to the boy than one would initially think. Meanwhile, men are being kidnapped from the streets and forced to fight in horrific gladiatorial fights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Godspeed, Young Traveller

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Set Pre-The Scientist and in an alternate universe where Laurel actually starts up CNRI again for the purposes of this story. This story is un-beta'd and therefore all mistakes are mine. Barry is slightly OOC due to his circumstances in the story. This is part one of the Godspeed, Young Traveller series. 
> 
> And yes, I am aware that this work is 49 pages long.

Unending youth had its perks. You couldn’t die, you didn’t age and get wrinkles on your skin and develop old people diseases like arthritis and heartburn. You had the infinite energy to do whatever you wanted to do. You could keep moving, keep living, keep roaming around the globe restlessly. Your flame never died out. It just kept burning on forever and forever. Barry had been alive since roughly about late 800 BC, making him about more than two thousand years old, and he still looked as though he was barely legal enough to drink alcohol.  Which sucked. He had been twenty-four when he died and came back from the dead (thanks Dad) but people still confused him for being nineteen-years-old. At least he had that whole twink thing going for him though. That was a bonus.

But unending youth had its downsides too. Barry preferred not to think about it.

Barry was not the type of person to just ‘settle down’. The whole ‘I’m Gonna Be Young Forever’ thing kind of stopped Barry realising that dream (not that he fantasized about it a lot). He had been all over the place. Coast City, Gotham, Metropolis, Atlantis, Pompeii (before the eruption of Vesuvius), London, Chicago, Beijing, Tokyo, and boy wasn’t Themyscira fun. Immortality gave you a lot of time to travel.

And adventures. It was amazing that heroes kept popping up all over history. The gods themselves didn’t need to copulate with mortals to produce these astounding individuals. Barry thought it was the _Moirai_ ’s doing, making him meet these people over and over again. The immortal didn’t like the idea of three old ladies deciding the course of his fate. His life had been meddled with enough already.

Barry was free to go anywhere. Most of anywhere, technically. There were some islands and lands closed off from him. Normally, he went wherever his feet took him. Whatever he stumbled upon, he would stay for a while until finally packing up his bags and going back to his travels.

And it took him to boring, old Starling City this time. He decided that instead of walking he would take the ten-oh-eight PM train from Blüthaven to wherever the Hades it was going. You could imagine his disappointment when he woke up from his nap to discover the train had stopped in the famous city of Starling City. He hadn’t expected to end up in Starling. He was hoping for Coast City—amazing sun, nice beaches, awesome food and great bikini babes—but instead he was got the result of when the world of Gossip Girl and Mad Men was brought to real life: Starling City. The nightlife heavily resembled a glamorous version of Geordie Shore, it was ruled by villainous tyrants that terrorised the city (the city had the highest cost of living in the country, according to some lifestyle magazine), the line between rich and poor was painfully obvious, and in general the whole city was several shades of bleak grey.

And the train wasn’t leaving. There were repairs to make. And Barry could just _run_ out of the city. A part of him wanted to stay for a while and take a nostalgic trip around town, maybe write about how it was so shitty on his blog. It was ridiculous the amount of followers he had. Last month, he passed the ten thousandth mark. So he hired a penthouse suite at a five-star hotel uptown, dumping his bags and taking only his camera, phone and wallet with him.

The last time he had been here, it was another accident. He was on the first bus—he was tired and couldn’t be stuffed running from Sunny Harbour to … well, wherever—out and accidentally ended up sleeping the entire bus trip. Anyway, Starling City seemed to be a dark place. The whole city was bleak and grey and depressing and so many other negative things that didn’t even need talking about. Aphrodite on her GB (Godbook, like Facebook but for gods) page said it had a wonderful nightlife and even better hotties. Apollo described it as _‘meh’_. Barry thought it was very dark but unlike Gotham, it wasn’t charming—at all.

Not much had changed. There was still the ugly architecture, the stupid names for the buildings, the shitty drivers— _watch where you’re going, asshole_!—and plenty of the other things that Barry didn’t miss about the city. Yep, he _hated_ the city.

“My ball!”

Barry had been eating as he walked down one of the less reputable parts of Starling, eating his way through a chocolate croissant. It had been the best croissant he had eaten in a while. A kid had walked out on the road, in pursuit of a basketball that had rolled out. And then, nearing the child, was a large van. It had been as if time had slowed down. It wasn’t. He was just moving too fast for everything.

It all happened in a tenth of a second.

Barry had thrown the croissant away, the sauce spilling all over the side of a wall. He darted towards the boy and suddenly he was by the child’s side, scooping him and the ball up. Barry safely brought the boy to the sidewalk, configuring the boy’s body posture like a store mannequin to hold the ball in his hands and to stand straight—

And contented with his work, Barry zoomed away …

Barry took his watch on the edge of a ledge on a nearby building, eying the boy from above. The boy was shell-shocked, eyes wide in disbelief. He couldn’t move from his shock to being moved one place to another, point A to point B, in a matter of nanoseconds—no, even less than that. The truck drove past the boy who had turned back in time to see it pass by him. The driver never none the wiser of the soul he could have possibly killed.

The immortal smiled. Super speed was one of his solely unique perks of being a demigod son of Hermes. Barry turned away and took off again, whizzing back to the café where he got the chocolate croissant from to get another.

__________

There were times when Diggle just wanted to kill Oliver Queen. Like wrapping his hands around Oliver’s neck and adding enough pressure that Oliver would die of asphyxiation or use one of his friend’s arrows and his bow and give the millionaire-cum-billionaire-cum-Bane-of-Diggle’s-life a taste of his own medicine. Boy, wouldn’t _that_ be fun? To imagine anyway. If Diggle tried to strangle him, no doubt Oliver’s quick reflexes would kick in and the ex-marine would find his ass be thoroughly kicked by the billionaire and if he tried use Oliver’s bow and arrows … He … For men, there were accessories that they would geek out about, treasure and try to keep clean and pristine, like vintage cars or baseball cards, slave all over them like Gollum and his ‘precious’. Oliver’s was his trademark weapons.

And now was one of these times Diggle wanted to strangle Oliver.

Diggle watched Oliver hang upside down off of one of the bars on the ceiling, pulling up his upper body weight up to meet his knees and go back down to dangle again. He was shirtless and the light in the Arrow Cave where Oliver was wasn’t great but Diggle could see the green light of Oliver’s … whatever the hell that was on the forearm glinting. No matter how many times Diggle asked about that—thing or how right the moment was, Oliver would never tell him about it. The vigilante would get all pissy and broody. The response was the same to Felicity and anybody else who saw it.

 “So …” Diggle started to say, approaching the experience-weathered man. “Are you going to tell me what it is that’s bothering you now or are you going to continue acting rude to everybody?”

“I’m— _grunt!_ —fine!” Oliver insisted.

“Oh, really?” Diggle had to raise an eyebrow. “I know you well enough that when you say you’re fine, it’s never the case.”

Oliver flipped off the railing, sweating and panting, and glared at Diggle.

“Is it something Arrow-concerned?” Diggle asked.

“No.”

Diggle’s gaze went to the mark on Oliver’s forearm. A timer was there. Diggle remembered the first time he had seen and inquired about it. Oliver’s answer was less than desirable. The numbers kept dwindling and now it was _23.15.45._

“Is it…” Diggle pointed vaguely to the timer. “That thing?”

Oliver’s fingers splayed protectively over the mark, holding it to his chest. _“No,”_ he gritted out. “It’s not.”

“Oliver …” Diggle sighed.

“Diggle …” Oliver answered in the same patronizing tone.

“What is it anyway?” Diggle pushed. Oliver’s face scrunched up in irritation and pushed past Diggle, making his way to the table that had his shirt and jacket draped over it. Diggle followed after him, continuing to chirp with, “You never told me what it was. You would _always_ get growly when I asked—”

_“Diggle_ …”

“See, like that right there. I have no way of knowing of whether that timer is dangerous or if it’s going to affect your job as Starling City’s local superhero or whatever. You might as well tell me about it since I’m the one person you have to—”

“It tells me when I’m going to meet my soul mate, alright?!” Oliver cried out, cutting off Diggle in agitated anger. Oliver fell back on the chair behind him, exhausted, placing a finger—using the arm that had the timer on it—to his temples. Diggle stood there, silently waiting for Oliver’s next words. Oliver seemed—distraught, or as close he could get to it. There was a gaunt heaviness to his face and a fear in his eyes that Diggle wasn’t used to seeing.

Oliver breathed in and out before continuing. “It’s a rare condition in my family from my mother’s side. A timer like this—” Oliver removed his finger from the side of his head and showed off his timer to Diggle. “—shows up and tells us _when_ we meet our, well, there are a lot of words for it. Other half, the One, true love, soul mate, destiny …”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Diggle stopped him, holding up a hand. “How are you even sure?”

“The last person in my family to have a timer was my grandmother. I met her and grandpa once. Those guys made Disney princesses and their princes look like a joke. And other recorded cases were all … matches made in heaven.” Oliver’s finger tapped against the stainless steel. _Tap! Tap! Tap!_ This had Oliver freaked. “Mom doesn’t have one and neither does Thea. It’s just me.”

“How did … How did your family even get something like that?”

“According to legend, Aphrodite.”

Diggle blinked in disbelief. “What? Like the Greek goddess of love?”

“That one.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I don’t believe in God or higher powers or anything like that.” How very like Oliver to say that. “I have only—” Oliver quickly glanced at his timer.  “—less than twenty-four hours until I meet the special someone the universe picked out for me.”

“And you’re nervous?”

Oliver mirthlessly laughed. “That, Diggle, is a bit of an understatement. If you were in my position, how would you feel?”

Diggle thought about it. Soul mates had always been seen as two people who complete each other. He had always considered the concept to be mythological, something cute to tell kids about and to dream about. In reality, there were no fairy tales and Happily Ever Afters were just prologues to stories that haven’t really ended. Still …

“It’d be like waiting for your baby to be born.” Oliver frowned, not understanding what his confidant was getting at. “You know it’s coming and so many feelings rush through you. Fear, anxiety, anticipation. You know it’s coming and no matter what you do, you can’t avoid it. And it’s … amazing.” That was the best way Diggle could put it. “Look, I have no way of knowing that this whole soul mate thing will work out okay for you. Remember Helena?” Oliver grimaced at the memory. “The whole ‘birds of a feather’ thing. All I’m saying is be careful. Because I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

“Dig—”

“And I want you to be happy as well,” Diggle quickly said. Diggle was sincere in that. He believed that from his treatment on the island where he isolated on for five years to his experiences as the Arrow, the guardian angel of Starling City, that Oliver had to have his due from the world somewhere along the line.

Oliver’s smile was thin and laced with an amused affection. “Thank you for your concern.”

“So what are you going to do, man?”

There was a pregnant pause in the cave then, filled with suspense that made Diggle hold his breath.

“I’m going to stay away from this person,” Oliver said at last. “I can’t put this person in danger. I don’t care if the universe says we’re meant to be. I’m too dangerous. And if it’s not me who hurts this person, then it’s going to be somebody else because of me.”

A small part of Diggle had hoped that Oliver would try to reach out to his soul mate—the term sounded so strange when attached to Oliver—instead of pushing away this unknown person. But Diggle understood. People associated with the Arrow and those close to Oliver Queen were at high risk. Roy, Thea, Felicity, Laurel and Diggle himself. Those were people Oliver never wanted to see hurt due to their relation to him.

“Whatever you say,” Diggle murmured and turned away, leaving Oliver to his thoughts.

______

Barry stared blandly at the Speed of Hermes. It was a travesty really. It looked nothing like Hermes. Barry should know. He could count the times he had seen his dad on one hand. It was a horrible place to put the dedication statue to his dad. The fountain was placed in the city’s CBD, right where busy businessmen and women could pass by without ever noticing for their attention was trained on their phones. Ingenious and useful things those devices were however they tended to be a tad bit annoying sometimes. The human-sized figure of Hermes was made of bronze, with youthful, elfish features, wearing a robe that scarcely covered his manhood, scandals and a dreadful hat with wings spanning out and his lithe body was configured in a running position. His dad had more style and more handsomeness than the artist who made this fountain. Water rushed out of edges of the platform where the statue of Hermes stood on, continuing to flow down two more platforms before stopping at the large circular dome.

Barry took a picture of the statue, using the expensive camera he bought at Chicago a few months back. He took classes there for photography. He didn’t have a distinct passion for it though. He just wanted his faithful followers that read his blog on Tumblr to have good quality pictures. It wasn’t like he could criticise dedicated artworks to the gods. They took offence very personally and Barry wouldn’t like to get on their bad side … again.

Barry went back to his hotel room afterwards, deciding to leech on the free hotel wi-fi and catch up on TV time. Mortals were very good when it came to cinematic entertainment. Star Wars, the original trilogy of course, was a work of art and was brilliant. Disney was awesome as well. The Lion King was something he was fond of. But Hercules was their _worst_ work. Mythology freaks would agree with him there.

Barry started up his laptop, opening his browser to go directly to his email. He turned on the TV as well, watching a random _Game of Thrones_ episode on-demand on the screen.

There were a few new messages in his inbox. Some were from his company, others from assorted superheroes all over the world, and the last one from an unknown sender.  

There was only one person that he knew that used UNKNOWN SENDER as their identity. Dad. Or at least somebody who was working for him at least. The message contained a series of missing reports in Starling City—how convenient for Barry that he was in the city—and the message: _Resolve this immediately._ That was the usual message he got whenever the gods had troubles in the human realm. Other variations included: Fix this right away, get to work at once, we want this done by Friday. Never a ‘please’ when ordering or a ‘thank you’ once he finished his job. Then again being the gods’ bitch was part of his eternal punishment.

Barry fell back on the bed, groaning. He sat back up, reading the message again. He discovered a short message attached to it. _Once the culprit/s is apprehended, immediate execution is ordered for judgement in the Underworld._

“Fantastic,” Barry muttered to himself. The gods had no manners whatsoever. “Just fantastic. A little common courtesy would be nice once in a while.”

_______

_01.12.45_

It would be one hour, twelve minutes and forty-five seconds until Oliver met his supposed one true love. He had always scoffed at the concept of such a thing. It seemed impossible. Too incredible to be real. Oliver traced his hands over the figures. Crap. It was all a load of crap. Oliver had looked into his condition several times, trying to find a way to remove the damn thing or see if it was actually real. His investigations never proved fruitful when all you had was an old legend involving your dead ancestor, Aphrodite and your deceased and living relatives who all swore that it was the real deal. Diggle had been regarding Oliver carefully all day, as if Oliver would break at any moment.

“What?!” he finally snapped at last. Oliver sat in the backseat Diggle was driving, scowling deeply at his companion. The two had been en route to Laurel’s legal clinic, which she had decided to open up again, to pick Thea who had volunteered to help out a bit.

“Nothing.”  Diggle was shaking his head.

“Come on,” Oliver pushed. “Tell me what it is.”

“You got an hour and a bit left on that thing.”

“Yeah, I know,” Oliver said flatly. Diggle’s concern over the subject was unneeded and unwanted by Oliver.

“Got any opening lines?”

“Diggle, I am not going to hook up with my soul mate. She might not even be my soul mate at all.”

Diggle smirked, the corners of his lips tugging up in amusement. “How are you so sure that your soul mate is a she?”

“I’m straight.”

Diggle continued driving. Oliver considered bashing his driver’s head against the dashboard. It didn’t seem like a good idea. Diggle was the one person he could depend on and could trust no matter what. Oliver was beginning to run out of good reasons of Why You Shouldn’t Kill Your Best Friend when Diggle started playing some obnoxiously upbeat, overly happy pop song and started singing along to the lyrics.

“Relax, man!” Diggle had to laugh. “You’re so tense! Loosen up a bit.”

“I’m so glad you find this _so_ hilarious,” Oliver retorted, giving Diggle his best intimidating glare. That made Diggle crack up all the more. Oliver rolled his eyes and looked out the window. Due to a traffic jam, the car trip ended up going a lot longer than expected. Every second that passed had Oliver being more and more irritable and his heart racing thumping harder and harder against his chest.

They finally reached the CNRI legal clinic when Oliver’s timer reached fifteen minutes. Oh god, was his soul mate a lawyer? He had nothing against lawyers; he just had enough of them in his lifetime.

“Easy there, Oliver,” Diggle comforted him, patting him on the shoulder. “Just relax and whatever happens, happens. The worst result you can get is some creepy seventy-year-old woman who has seven cats.”

“No, I can get worse—much, much _worse_ ,” Oliver cynically murmured back.

“Pessimist.”

“Actually, I’m a realist,” Oliver shot back, a slight grin on his lips. The back and forth banter did little to relieve his nerves. “I thought you knew me well enough for that.”

A sober look crossed Diggle’s face. “Sometimes I don’t know what you’re thinking in that head of yours, Oliver.”

When the vigilante and his bodyguard entered the legal clinic, it was in a state of disarray. It was anarchy everywhere. People ran around frantically getting from place to place, holding files and laptops to their chests like their lives depended on it. Out of the corner of Oliver’s eye, when a lawyer went to sit down on a chair, confetti exploded from it. Fred and George Weasly had better watch out. Whoever rigged this up was serious competition.

“What …” Diggle started as a bunch of fake spiders suddenly dangled from the ceiling, making several women shriek in terror. “The …” A man ran past them, covered head to toe in glitter, and screaming ‘Watch out for the monkeys!’ “HELL?!” And suddenly a pail of water poured out of nowhere and drenched Diggle. Oliver couldn’t help the tiny snigger that escaped him. Diggle glared at his friend.

“Oliver!” Thea cried out, running up to them. “Diggle!” Oliver’s younger sister threw her arms around her big brother and held him close. “Thank God you’re here!”

“What’s going on in here?!” Oliver had to shout over the commotion.

“I don’t know!” Thea exclaimed hysterically. Her usually neat and silky hair was a mess, her make-up had smudged and her expensive choice of clothing had been ruined thoroughly by paint, glitter and water. And Oliver thought he had seen Thea at her worst. “Everything was fine and dandy until, well, all this—” she flailed her arms around to the chaos surrounding them, “happened!” Thea’s eyes suddenly widened. “DUCK!”

Diggle, Oliver and Thea dropped to the ground just in time to avoid the barrage of M&Ms that was shot out of a plush Hello Kitty doll that was perched on a nearby desk. The three crawled away, trying to find a safe place from all the mayhem that was now the legal clinic. They made it to the printers where they hesitantly got up. Oliver quickly checked his timer. _00.10.05._ Thea saw his timer and her frantic face melted into watchful concern for her brother. Thea had known about Oliver’s timer since she was a little girl and Oliver knew that Thea envied him for his timer.

“Oliver,” she gasped. “Your timer!”

Oliver pulled his sleeve up, hiding his timer from view. “Where’s Laurel?”

“I don’t think she’s your soul mate, Ollie …”

“THEA!”

Thea rolled her eyes and pointed behind Oliver. “There. Happy?” Laurel was cowering under a desk, bewilderedly looking around her. Just as the blond haired man started to move towards her, Thea and Diggle had to drag him away when a herd of … toy monkeys driving cars armed with tiny guns started driving towards them. Bursts of sparkling glitter shout out of the guns, ruining the clothes of everybody who came in their proximity.   _Ahh,_ Oliver thought. _So those are the monkeys._

Oliver spent the next few minutes unsuccessfully trying to reach Laurel and failing to get out as well. Oliver had to give props to whoever pranked the office. It was very impressive. Oliver had no idea why this mystery prankster would do this to a legal clinic. It was a place meant to help people. Perhaps the prankster harboured a hatred for the clinic for some strange, unknown reason.

“Oliver!” Thea shouted. She was pointed to his timer that was bare for all to see. Somehow in all the pandemonium, his sleeve had been pulled up. _00.00.10._ Oliver’s stomach dropped. _.09, .08., 0.7 …_ Panic raced through his mind. His eyes desperately darted around the clinic, hoping to find a place to make a clean getaway. _.06, .05, .04, .03, .0.2 …_

“Um …” a voice—a boy’s—spoke out behind Oliver. _.01 …_ Oliver turned around.

_0.0_ …

“Pizza delivery!”

_(“Do you what these numbers are, Oliver?” Oliver’s mother asked, stroking her hand fondly over the timer. It was bedtime and Oliver was tucked under his favourite dark green blanket, his mother sitting on his mattress with a soft smile on her face._

_Oliver nodded. He had heard this story many times but it had fascinated him, despite his reluctance to believe it._

_“Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love,” Moira started, “was captured by a group of sinister snake-like women known as the Scythian Dracaenae. In the absence of Aphrodite, the world grew thick with hate. So our ancestor, the great prince of Argos, Cerces, along with his reliable companion, set out to find Aphrodite. They found on her being held in a cage made of magic bronze in a cave on the Greek Islands. Prince Cerces bravely fought off the dracaenae while his companion worked to open the cage. Once the companion had freed the goddess of love, Aphrodite unleashed her fury on the dracaenae, destroying them all in a burst of great white light._

_“Aphrodite rewarded these heroes. For Cerces, our ancestor, she blessed a few of our bloodline with a timer on our forearm that counted down to the moment we would meet our other half.”_

_“What about the companion?” Oliver curiously asked. It was the first time he had asked about the sidekick. His main focus was usually on his ancestor, the great Prince Cerces. “What happened to him?”_

_“Nothing,” she answered. “I suppose.”_

_Oliver was dumbfounded. “Nothing?” he echoed. “But—but—but he was the one who got Aphrodite back. Without him, she never would have been freed.”_

_“It’s an old legend, Oliver,” she sighed. “Details get lost. It could be that the fate of the trust sidekick got through the generations.” She was staring at Oliver’s timer again. She brought up her forearm to her lips and kissed it chastely. “Be good for him,” she whispered. “Please, please, please, be good for him.”_

_“Mom!” Oliver whined, mortified._

_Moira laughed at his embarrassment as the boy wrenched his arm away from her and cradled protectively it to his chest. “Get to sleep, Oliver,” she told him. “We have that polo tournament to attend tomorrow.”)_

His soul mate was younger than he expected. His face was all sharp, angular and youthful features that amplified the ageless, wide-eyed glimmer of mischievousness and purity in his stunning greyish blue eyes. An _Alfredo’s Pizza Hut_ cap was placed firmly on his head of short windblown dark hair. The boy—man? It was difficult to tell—wore a black tee-shirt with a matching pizza logo that was on his hat, wore a bulky shoulder strap bag and held about five boxes of pizza in his arms.

“Hey, is somebody gonna pay for this or what?!” The pizza delivery boy asked.

Oliver was at a loss at what to say. He had thought of how this moment would go, not that he would ever admit it, and meeting his soul mate in a chaotic office that was under attack from several various pranks was certainly how he envisioned it going.

As if finally noticing Oliver, the kid said, “Oh, hey! I have a bulk pizza delivery package for CNRI Legal Clinic. But it seems a little …” he gave the environment around him a nervous look. “I sorta need this paid or otherwise my boss is gonna fire me.”

Oliver snapped out of his daze, taking his wallet out of his pocket. Oliver pulled out a wad of bills and placed it on top of the stack of boxes. His soul mate grinned brightly, all carefree and happy, at Oliver. Oliver felt like … It was like Christmas morning and his birthday and all the other good days in his life that had his cheeks reddening against his will and held him frozen in place. The pizza boy placed it on a desk nearby and took a step back, as if it would explode. It didn’t.

“Sorry,” his soul mate said to him. “Can’t be too careful with this place. GET DOWN!” His soul mate tackled him to the ground right as toilet paper sailed over them. Heat rushed through Oliver’s veins at the intimate contact. He could smell him—the smell of rain and breeze, like back on the island he had been trapped on for five years. Their faces were brought so close together that their noses touched and their mouths were just millimetres away from each other. The boy’s legs were around his and Oliver could feel the kid’s pelvis on his hips.

The kid gulped. “I … Hey, there …”

“Hi …” Oliver mumbled numbly back.

“WHAT ON GOD’S GOOD GREEN EARTH IS GOING ON HERE?!”

Oliver had been forcefully dragged away from his haze and reined his eyes away from the eyes of his soul mate to the familiar man standing in the doorway. Officer Quentin Lance. A metal contraption that hung over the doorway immediately activated to his arrival and the good police captain’s face was caked in cream pie.

“Ha!” It escaped out of his mouth. Hysterical laughter overcame Oliver. It had been building up for a while and Lance getting cream pie’d was the tipping point.

His soul mate watched him warily. “Are you … okay?”

“QUEEN!”

Uh-oh.

“Run!” Suddenly his soul mate got off of him, pulled Oliver up and was wrenching him away from the whole scene. They managed to navigate their way through the chaos and escaped through the door. Oliver was blindly following the mysterious boy out the building and onto the streets where they continued to sprint further and further away.

It was like they were travelling on the wind, the world just rushing past them like clouds. It was that moment that Oliver could have sworn that the weight of his burdens and responsibilities was gone and all that mattered was him and the soul mate of the name he did not know and the indescribable, exhilarating and incredible feeling that ran through him.

They jumped onto a bus that had stopped at a nearby bus station, crawling through the side door, escaping the notice of the driver and slumped back on the seats located on the rear.

“So,” the boy said beside him. He seemed not to have broken a sweat and wasn’t panting for breath strangely. “That was fun. Who was that guy?”

“Police,” Oliver replied curtly. “I used to date his daughter and I cheated on her with her sister five years ago.”

_“Ah._ You’re a rich playboy asshole then?”

“I’m Oliver Queen,” Oliver told him.

The kid stared blankly at him, and then he blinked, _twice_. “Um, yeah, cool.” Oliver had the sneaking suspicion that he didn’t know who Oliver was. It was hard not to know who Oliver was. His face had been plastered across the internet and media as the long lost castaway son who went down with the Queen’s Gambit. The bus pulled out of the stop and started to drive away.

“And you are?” Oliver prompted.

The boy fell silent, looking at Oliver as though he could he see his soul. His hand came up, running it through Oliver’s hair. Oliver loved the feel of the kid’s hands running through his hands. “Somebody who understands loneliness and hurt.”

“Weird name.”

“Your eyes gave it away, dude.”

Weird kid. But Oliver smiled, the corner of lips tugging up. “You still haven’t given your _real_ name.”

The kid pulled his hand back and held it for Oliver to shake. “It’s Barry.” The kid’s smile was radiantly bright. “Barry Allen.”

______

Oliver and Barry got off at the stop on the corner of Millway Avenue and Corner Stone Street when bus inspectors got on the bus. They headed out with no particular place in mind, which was strange considering that Barry should have returning to work. When Oliver asked, Barry merely laughed and said it was time for him to quit. Barry chucked the hat in a bin and the two slowly walked to a two-story café next to an alley filled with colourful street art and a second hand bookshop.

Oliver found it hard to believe what was happening. Only half an hour ago, Oliver’s timer had stopped and now he was having a date, as hesitant as he was to call it that, with his ‘soul mate’.  The café smelled heavily of coffee beans and chocolate. Oliver noticed Barry looking longingly at the cakes and pastries in the protective glass of the counter.

“Hungry?” Oliver murmured in a soft voice.

“Mmmmm, I’ve gone longer without food.”

“Seriously, I’ll buy. Just pick out whatever you want.”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “Is this your idea of picking somebody up?” he teased.

“If it is, is it working?”

Barry nervously chuckled, cheeks turning red and his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, Oliver … Is it okay if I call you Oliver?”

“Yeah,” Oliver replied immediately and internally winced at his own enthusiasm. He berated himself. It was like he regressed to his awkward, fumbling, preteen years when he had no experience in dating. “I mean, it’s okay to call me that.”

“I’m not … interested.” Outside, Oliver seemed okay. Inside, it was like a helium-filled balloon was popped. “I mean, you’re hot and all. The most exquisite human being I’ve seen in a while in fact.” Then Barry’s eyes widened comically and he blushed. “Crap. I said that out loud didn’t I? Well, whatever. My track record with romantic relationships is horribly ugly and I’m only good at one-night stands. So, um, thanks but no thanks.”

Oliver was wounded by Barry’s words, each word of rejection like a pickaxe hitting ice until finally slamming it into pieces. Oh. Right. Of course. He knew this soul mate thing was too good to be true. “What if we had a meal just as friends? No strings attached, no funny business?”

“Oliver—”

“I know you want to.”

Barry’s mouth pressed into a thin line. _Somebody who understands loneliness and hurt._ Oliver recalled Barry’s introduction. Obviously, he had been hurt before by somebody who broke his heart. That could be what prompted Barry’s rejection to the idea of Oliver’s … um, wooing. “Fine,” he relented. “But you’re paying.”

“Don’t worry. I’m loaded.”

“Figures,” Barry muttered, rolling his eyes. “I’ll have a slice of the chocolate velvet cake and a cookie and cream dough milkshake with cream on top.”

Oliver snorted, heading up to tell the perky blonde behind the counter their order and to have it ordered up to a table up on the second counter. Their table was a small round one-legged thing situated next to the balcony offering a great view of the street laid beneath them and it was so narrow that Oliver had to sweep his feet under the chair to keep it from touching Barry’s.

“So,” Oliver started. “What was so bad about _Alfredo’s Pizza Hut_?”

Barry shrugged. “Manager was a creep. All hands he was. Good food though. What about you? What brought you to a legal clinic? Did you get in trouble with the local force or were you trying to fight off vandalism charges?”

“Ha-ha,” Oliver said dryly. “Actually no. I was there to pick up my sister, Thea. She’s in there on probation.”

Barry seemed not to have recognised Thea’s name. The Queen’s siblings were pretty big in Starling’s media scene. It was difficult not to know them. So either Barry didn’t spend a lot of time looking at the news or gossip magazines or he didn’t care to know. “You were supposed to leave with your sister and instead you’re here with me. Why?”

“As I recall,” Oliver retorted, playfully smirking at him. “You were the one who said ‘run!’ and then hauled me away.”

“Good point, but only I thought that cop-guy was going to blame you for the office mayhem,” Barry defended. “By the way, was that you? ‘Cause if it was, props to you.”

Oliver shook his head. “Sorry, no. Although, the prankster should not have targeted the clinic. That clinic is what stands between good people being abused by evil tyrants,” Oliver said. The waitress arrived with their orders and set it at their table. Both men thanked the woman and she walked away, sending a flirtatious glance Oliver’s way. Barry gave him a curious stare, silently pleading for the billionaire to go on.

Oliver continued explaining, “An old friend of mine, Laurel, she’s a lawyer there. She’s an odd person to find in the world. She had a firm belief in what’s right and wrong and she isn’t afraid to stand up against those who used their power to oppress other weaker people. It figures since her father is a cop. Now her office is like her base of operations. It’s where she keeps important files, documents, everything she needs to take down the bad guys. Due to the recent attack, these essentials could be lost and the order she needs to work is now a disorganized mess. If she can’t fight against these guys in court then good, innocent people could get hurt.”

“Oh,” Barry said, amazed. “Wow. You’re really, really passionate about this Laurel. I wish I could help you get this asshole. I mean, when you put it like that, the more it seems to me that this attack—your words, not mine—seems like an attack from the bad guys.” Oliver took a sip out of his mocha, making a gesture for Barry to elaborate. “As you said before, important files and documents could be lost. Anybody, an intern, a fellow lawyer, _me_ , could just waltz in and take whatever they were hired to take.”

“You’re right,” agreed Oliver. “Did you take anything?”

Barry deadpanned at him. “The most trouble I get with the law is, like, drunk and disorderly offenses and public nudity.” Oliver choked on his coffee. Barry running around naked? The kid looked too sweet and innocent for that. Then again, appearances could be deceiving. “College, dude. It’s a, um, rite of passage at the frat house.”

“What college do you go to?” Oliver inquired.

Barry took a bite out of his cake. “I used to go to Central City College of Sciences,” he informed him. “I dropped out. I got bored with the classes.”

“I used to one of those fancy Ivy League colleges before I dropped out,” Oliver confessed. “The classes weren’t so much as boring as I couldn’t seem to find the time for them. I was a party boy back then.”

“But you’re reformed now?” Barry asked. “Sorry. I’m perceptive about people. You’re young and yet you remind me of war veterans. They get weathered by what they’ve seen, all the horror and what they had to do to survive. It weighs them down in some way in a way that therapy can’t help. It’s in the way you stand, the way you survey an environment before entering and, well, your eyes.”

“How do you know all this?”

“My family,” Barry replied quickly. “They were all involved in war in some way. Mom was a field doctor, Dad’s a soldier, Grandpa was in ‘Nam. I’ve seen what it did to them.”

“Ah.”

“I’m not gonna pry about what happened to you. You can tell me if you want,” Barry said. “I’m a complete stranger to you and I’ve got no right to be pushing for details.”

“Have you been in the military?”

Barry’s gaze was distantly focused on the slice of cake in front of him. “I used to be.” It was almost inaudible. “Enough of depressing talk, I wanna hear about you. You look like a superhero guy. Who’s your favourite?”

“Probably, the Arrow.” Oliver couldn’t help his ego answer for him.

Barry’s face scrunched up. “Who’s that?”

Oliver stared wide-eyed at Barry. “You don’t who the Arrow is?”

Barry shook his head and laughed, his cheeks flushing red. “I don’t watch a lot of TV and my wi-fi’s out.”

“He’s Starling City’s very own guardian angel,” Oliver explained. “He targets criminals and does what any other superhero does.”

Barry bit down a laugh. “Does he wear tights?”

“No.”

“Leather pants?”

“Something close to it, I think.”

Barry didn’t laugh. He had this secretive, fond smile and an expression that’s so light yet so unreadable that Oliver can’t tell what he’s thinking. Oliver has no idea if Barry hated or liked the Arrow. Finally, he said, “Interesting.”

“Good interesting or bad interesting?” Oliver inquired.

Barry shrugged. “Just interesting. It was about time this city got a guardian angel.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I hate this city.” A silence played out between them. Starling City had always been praised highly by travel critics for its interesting sights, active nightlife and the picturesque urban scenery. He knew it wasn’t the easiest place before Oliver turned himself into a vigilante and started removing those who terrorise _his_ city. Barry gazed out to the street outside, the cars moving on the road beneath them, to the buildings around them and finally up to the sky. “Before, it seemed sick, as if there was a poisonous cancer that only grew and grew.”

“And now?”

“Now?” Barry echoed. “Now it’s … healthier. I can only guess that this is the doing of the Arrow you were talking about. You’d be surprised by the amount of hope a hero can inspire, how they can make mere men become more and fill children up with dreams and aspirations. I mean, look what happened to Gotham and Batman. However, anything can happen and this hero can just up and leave Starling.”

“He won’t.” Oliver’s answer was immediate, without hesitation. “He has a responsibility and tie to this city that can never be cut. He would _never_ just leave the people of Starling City behind.”

And across the table from him, there’s something in Barry’s eyes that shone—Oliver didn’t know what—and quickly dimmed. Barry leaned back into his chair and grinned lackadaisically at Oliver. “Loyalty like that is what can lead to both the greatness and downfall of men,” Barry said sagely. “I’m still not keen on Starling City.”

“What if I said I could change your mind?”

Barry lit up with amused interest. “By that, you mean turn my hatred for Starling City into love?”

“Starling City isn’t so bad,” Oliver reasoned. “Maybe you’ve just been seeing it a different way than I have.”

Barry was silent. Again, Oliver had no way of knowing what Barry was thinking. Oliver noticed Barry’s fingers, resting on his lap, were one by one, from his pinky to his thumb, rising up and down like a wave. “You have two days,” Barry issued. “Two days to convince me that this place isn’t so crappy. Are you willing to take up that challenge?”

“Bring it, Barry,” Oliver challenged cockily.

Barry smirked and got up. “Thanks for the meal then,” Barry told him. “I’ll meet you at the café at eleven-thirty AM tomorrow. Ta!” And with that, Barry walked away, throwing a wink over his shoulder as he did. His steps were light, Oliver observed, however there was an intangible and invisible force pulling down his shoulders.

______

The bar Barry found himself entering tonight is alive with life and smelling heavily of liquidated spirits and the sulphuric scent of monsters. He adjusted the black Ray-Ban sunglasses perched on his nose and proceeded inside, lazily surveying the area. There were a few nymphs by the bar being chatted up by a satyr who was loudly boasting about facing off against a manticore, a band of Cyclopes over in a booth at the corner whining about how lady Cyclopes were so hard to find, dryads, Synthian Dracaenae and a motley of other creatures that Barry half-mindedly recognised. It’s nothing he couldn’t take on. Presuming they smell his godly scent—and he doesn’t mean it in a good way. Demigods had a way of attracting monsters to them.

He found who he was looking for sitting in a booth, drinking a glass of whiskey and goes to him. He wasn’t a particularly handsome satyr. He was overweight, with balding hair, wearing a distasteful paisley shirt and ill-fitting shorts, and was pungent with the smell of nicotine and alcohol.

Barry slid into the seat across from him. “Norris Glee, I presume?”

The stayr looked up, annoyed with the poozer that had just said his name. “Who’s askin’?” he grunted.

Barry pulled out a pouch full of drachmas out of his pocket and showed it to Norris. “An interested air sprite looking for entertainment in this Podunk town.”

“I thought you sprites stuck to the skies.” Norris grumbled.

“There isn’t a law preventing my kind from being on ground from time to time. A friend of mine recommended a certain pastime to me in this city.”

“Of the … illegal kind?”

“That one.”

“Well, c’mon sprite.” Norris got up, ambling—hobbling if a normal mortal saw him—to the door. Barry followed after him, hoping that the file he had lifted from the legal clinic was right. It was surprising that a police file had found its way to a lawyer’s desk, but, hey, lawyers were becoming more and more sneaky with the way they got information. It was a missing person’s case and Norris had been highlighted as somebody involved with the MP’s disappearance. Police had interrogated him and got nothing from the satyr, only given the impression of an alcoholic slob with a limp. It was funny how the world of gods was so well hidden from the world of mortals.

Barry quickly sniffed the collar of his button-up, checking if the cologne that hid his demigod scent was still working. It still was. Good. Barry preferred not to fight. Norris led him down a couple of streets before taking them to a flashy nightclub. _Neon Paradise_ , the sign read. They walked past the queue that gathered up and went to the backdoor where a muscly, hairy bull-like man in a black suit standing at the door. It wasn’t until Barry had taken a closer look that the demigod realized that the man was a Minotaur—half-man, half-bull. Great.

“’Ey, Bobby!” The satyr greeted the Minotaur. “How’s it going for tonight?”

A puff of smoke snorting out of the Minotaur’s nostrils.

“Thought so,” Norris said. “’Ey, ya see this poof”—he pointed to Barry, who squawked indignantly—“here wants to see the games. He’s got the money.” Norris nudged Barry with his elbow in the ribs. Barry grunted and took the pouch out of his pocket and threw it to the Minotaur, glaring at Norris. Norris grinned toothily, showing his ugly yellow and crooked teeth. “Can we go in?”

The Minotaur peeked inside the pouch, checking if the payment was suitable and then scrutinized Barry. Barry wasn’t fazed by the stern glare and made an impatient face. He had faced bigger. Finally, the Minotaur grunted and gestured to the cellar door on the ground. Barry hadn’t noticed it was there. Norris bent down, pulling open the doors and went inside, the demigod trailing behind. There were a set of steps that lead down and soon, the sound of cheers, jeering and roaring bounced off the walls. A light was in the distance that only grew bigger as Barry neared it.

When he and Norris reached the end of the descending staircase, Barry sucked in a deep breath. It was massive colosseum, half the size of an ordinary stadium but big enough to suit its needs. The rows were filled with creatures of all sorts. Scaly, gigantic, three-legged, one-eyed, it didn’t matter as long as they were paying customers. All the missing people that were taken were fighters, all connected to some form of fighting. Barry knew that they were being somehow recruited. He hoped that this possibility wasn’t true with all his heart. Norris got them seats at the top of the colosseum, right where they could see everything.

“A gladiator fight,” Barry stated emptily. “Can’t believe they still do that.”

“Hey, the Romans were great at entertaining the masses!” Norris pointed out. For the sake of keeping up appearances, Barry nodded his head in an enthusiastic way.  

“So who’s it between?” Barry asked.

“You’ll see.”

Barry simply huffed and crossed his arms. At the battle dome at the bottom, an iron—probably celestial iron—gates slowly slid up, making this annoying mechanical noise. Out of the doorway out came a raggedy man—a mortal, and one of the missing persons—walked out, covered in very little armour and holding a crudely made bronze sword. He was … scared. Scared as he looked around him and absolutely fearful for his life. Barry had wanted to run to the man and drag him away from the colosseum. He couldn’t. Not without blowing his cover.

_WHIIRRRR!_ The twin iron gate on the other side activated and opened up for—oh, dear Gods, this was utterly unfair to the mortal. It was a hellhound, big and ferocious, the size and length of a bus, and covered in matted dark brown fur.

“This seems a bit one-sided to me,” scoffed Barry. “Hardly amusing.”

“Eh,” the satyr then belched. “It’s good fun to watch. Better than the tripe they put in Tee-Vee. I mean, have you seen Twilight?”

Yes. Yes, he had. And it was horrible. He would take watching Twilight than see _this_ , though. A loud trumpet called through the colosseum, marking the beginning of the match. Barry watched as the hellhound bounded into action. The mortal tried to get away but he was no match for the beast’s speed. It wasn’t long until the beast had trapped against the wall and the hellhound ripped the mortal apart with its monstrous jaws. Beside him, Norris was crying out with glee along with the rest of the audience aside from Barry. Barry felt repulsed. He had seen many a good man die before his very eyes, but he had never seen a man killed for entertainment. Even back he was in Ancient Rome, he stayed away from the Colosseum, finding the concept of men killed for the leisure of others to be sickening.

“Man, that was _awesome!_ ” Norris cheered. “Did you see when the funny human screamed when the dog bit into him? Gods, this place is worth every drachma.”

“Indeed.” Barry looked up and saw a small little viewing box above, where humans in smart and sharp business were standing, viewing the stadium. “I thought mortals weren’t supposed to have ties with our world.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes the rich and wealthy come down here to watch.”

“What about the Veil? Isn’t it supposed to like, I don’t know, hide certain details from them?”

“Do I look like I do?!” Norris growled at him. “Just shut up and enjoy the show, sprite!”

Barry sighed. A witch who could manipulate the Veil then. The very topic of witches made him shiver. “Ugh, this is _so_ barbaric,” Barry whined. “Looks like Aerys was lying to me about this being fun. Whatever, I’m outta here!” Barry sashayed out of there, leaving the satyr behind him.

_______

The next morning Barry felt absolutely awful. He cleaned up as best as he could, actually bothering to style his hair and try to wear nice clothes. He doesn’t know what convinced him to wear a printed tee, skinny tight black jeans, his favourite pair of winged (they were fake feathers) Converses and a navy blue blazer folded up to his elbows. He knew a few people in the café, the very same one he visited with Oliver yesterday, were checking him out. Barry wasn’t used to … affection. Of any kind. Kind of unbelievable. Two thousand years and he was still wasn’t used to the kiss on the cheek, the gentle brush of hands and the longing, lingering look of a lustful man or woman on him.

“Wow, you look horrible.” A voice drew him away from his thoughts. Oliver. In a green long-sleeved shirt advertising the Starling Rockets and jeans. Barry’s breath stuttered. Dammit. Barry had seen a lot of handsome men in his time but … this one had this particular effect on him. This was another catastrophe waiting to happen. No, a ticking nuclear time bomb was a better name for it. “What happened?”

“Rough night.”

“What happened?”

“I … My … Got a call from my family,” Barry lied. A queasy feeling built up in his stomach. Lying to Oliver made him sick for an unknown reason. “Ever since I turned sixteen, we haven’t gotten spectacularly well.”

Then Oliver got this concerned, worried expression that unnerved Barry. Concern was something he got from very few. It was also something he wasn’t quite used to yet. Oliver’s worry was wasted on him; Barry was lying. “Have you tried reconciling with them?”

“I’ve tried talking to them but they won’t talk to me.” It’s similar to his real family life. I want to talk to my dad, who is busy with being the god of merchants, thieves, travel, the messenger of the gods and the head of the DIA, but he can’t seem to find the time for me. “Complications. They make everybody’s lives a mess.”

“Tell me about it,” Oliver snorted. “Are you ready for your tour of Starling City?”

“I’m fairly sure that you won’t change my mind that Starling sucks.”

“Never say never.” It was adorable really. How Oliver loved this dreadful city and how keen he was to convince Barry that Starling was a great place. Oliver held out his hand, longingly and expectantly looking at Barry. Barry’s eyes darted from Oliver to his hand and back again until he crookedly grinned and accepted it. In books, an electric current ran through those who had romantic inclinations to those they were touching. For Barry, it was like being lifted out of the shadows. The immortal wondered how that was possible.

Oliver had started with the basic landmarks. The St. John’s bridge, the abominable statue of his dad in the CBD, the art sculptures at the docks … So far, he’d give Oliver an A+ for effort but Barry stood firm that Starling stunk. Oliver noticed too, in the lack of enthusiasm he held in what Oliver showed him and especially the distasteful scowl he gave his dad’s statue. When they stopped for a brief break at a local burger joint, Oliver was deep in thought.

“You,” Oliver started, “aren’t liking what I’m showing you.”

“I know you’re trying however it isn’t working,” Barry replied. “Have you looking at it from a different angle?” To Oliver’s bewildered face, he said, “You’re trying to show tourist favourites, man. If you love this place so much then _why_ is it so special to you? What makes it Starling City to you?”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that before,” Oliver confessed. He took another bite of his burger. “Have you found a new job yet?”

“What?” Barry remembered that he _used_ to _work_ for Alfredo’s. “No, still looking.”

“I have a nightclub down in the Glades. My sister runs the place. I think she might have need for a new bartender.”

Barry moonlighted as a bartender once. Back in the Nineties in New Orleans. Only for, like, six months before he had to move on. “No thanks. I’m capable of finding myself a nice job.” He already had a job. Wait, sorry, _punishment_. “So you own this nightclub?”

“Yes. But my sister looks after it. It’s a bit difficult to manage a nightclub and run a company at the same time.”

“You run a company?”

“Queen Consolidated. Not a lot of love in the streets for my company however. I used to have somebody running my club before my sister,” Oliver informed him. “He, um, died.”

 “Oh,” said Barry. Death was a constant in his life, visiting his friends and staying away from him. Death would never collect his soul. His father made sure of that. “I’ve lost a lot of friends as well.”

 “You said you were in the military once.”

“Yeah.” He’s been in the military several times in fact. He had been in World War One, as a ground troop for Britain, a U.S Sargent in a squad of commandoes and fought against communists in Vietnam. “I was.” It’s strange how years can be filled with the world at war and violence and other relative peace and warring politicians.

“Are you … adjusting?” Oliver asked. He knew what it was like. Not to be at war, but what you had to do to survive. Barry didn’t know what happened to the blond and he wasn’t going to check the internet for it if this guy is that famous. That kind of information had to be given.

“I’m fine,” Barry said. “I—Don’t worry about me. What about you? What happened to you? What made you change from an arrogant rich boy to the man you are today?” And Barry knew he touched on a sensitive subject for Oliver as soon as the blond man’s eyes grow cloudy. “Sorry,” he said at once. “I shouldn’t have touched that topic.”

“It’s fine,” Oliver assured him. “There’s nothing wrong with asking. You were curious after all.” Oliver was quiet for a moment, deciding how he would tell Barry. Telling other people about life-changing experiences has always been hard in Barry’s case. This is hard for Oliver too. “I was a castaway on an island for five years.”

Barry hadn’t been expecting that.

“I went through a lot there.”

Barry didn’t know what to say. He’s heard life-stories and gripping tales of hardship before. But when it comes to Oliver, words seem to flounder. Since he can’t speak, he tried going for the physical approach. Cautiously, Barry placed his fingers over Oliver’s hand where it had been resting between them and looked at Oliver straight in the eye.

“Thanks,” Oliver murmured. Barry blushed—something he hasn’t done a lot in his life pre-Oliver—and grinned.

“Am I doing a good job of being comforting and all that supportive crap?” Barry asked. “I’m in totally foreign territory here.”

“You’re understanding,” and Barry was filled with relief. For some reason. Then Oliver’s fingers enveloped his. No, Barry did not freeze up nor did his heart skip a beat. He’s not _attached_ to Oliver and he will _not_ be. His life is too long for that and Oliver obviously deserved better than what Barry could ever offer him.

“Good.”

And the conversation fizzled out from there and it wasn’t long until they didn’t say anything and ate one-handed in companionable silence because they were still holding hands. At the same time, Barry wanted to take his hand away and keep touching Oliver. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman smirking and taking a picture of them with her iPhone.

“That lady is taking pictures of us,” Barry whispered.

“What?” Oliver turned to see the lady and glared disapprovingly at her. The lady’s smirk only grew wider. Ah, she knew Oliver. “That’s Carly. She works as a waitress here. Is she bothering you?”

“I don’t like my picture ending up on the internet or on tabloid magazines.” It made things rather sticky. Pictures led to questions he didn’t want to answer. Plus the DIA would have to remove all existence of his existence. _All_ evidence. Meaning they would also manipulate the Veil to remove memories. Getting scolded by his time to time ‘handler’ was also another _perk_.

“Don’t worry.” Oliver squeezed his hand. “I know her. She wouldn’t do that.”

“I trust your judgement, I think.”

“You think?”

Barry chuckled, loving the bemused scrunched-up look of hurt on Oliver’s face. “Shall we continue the futile pursuit of Why Starling City Doesn’t Suck?”

“Pessimist,” Oliver remarked.

“No, I’m a realist.”

Oliver snorted and doubled over in laughter.

“What?” Barry demanded, befuddled. “Okay, this may be funny for you but it’s not for me!”

“Oh, sorry,” Oliver apologized, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “I said that to a friend of mine recently.”

________

The rest of the tour went well. Or so Oliver hoped. Oliver showed Barry the little nooks and crannies of Starling City he adored, talking about what made them special and past experiences. Barry had smiled more, the light in those heavy eyes shining brighter, and his attitude brightening to the places Oliver brought him to. Oliver had caught Barry gazing at him from time to time, full of bittersweet amazement and something akin to awe. Oliver couldn’t shake the feeling that Barry was still hiding from him. Oliver did not push Barry; the man did say he was ex-military. Oliver could see it. The way he analysed his surroundings, the hesitation to talk about certain things, the way he held himself.

Barry did eventually disclose that he did do a lot of travelling before joining the military. He had been to Rome, to Bali, to Manilla and plenty of other places. He talked about a few of the things he went through in those places. He did elaborate into his dislike of Starling City, going into detail how it seemed bleak, grey and superficial to him the last time he had been here. Barry didn’t know a lot about the Hood, or the Arrow as he ran by nowadays. Oliver had to tell him about the Arrow’s work, what he did and how he had changed the city. Barry listened attentively, clinging to every word.

“You talk about him passionately,” Barry commented once Oliver finished. They sat on a bench in Starling City Park under the shade of a tree. “Do I hear a fan girl crush?”

_“No.”_

“Well, you have me hooked,” Barry said, ruffling Oliver’s sheer shorn hair.

Barry had to leave afterwards, saying that he had somewhere to be. Oliver returned back to Verdant, somewhat giddy, walking past the usual queue for the night had gathered up and heading towards the back of the club. He put in the code for the keypad to the entrance to his base of operations and the door opened for him.

“Is that a smile I see on your face, Oliver?” Diggle was down in the basement, along with Felicity, leisurely surrounded by her computers.

Oliver’s face straightened and he scowled at his confidant. “No,” he denied straight out.  

“He was,” Felicity sung good-naturedly, sending a smirk to Diggle. “What’s got you in a good mood? There’s not a lot that can put you in that sort of mood.”

“I … was meeting a friend,” Oliver responded, crossing over to where his bow and arrows were on its usual stainless steel table. Seeing the snide look coming from Diggle, he added, “A _platonic_ friend.”

Diggle moved to Oliver, reaching out to pick up an arrow, instead getting a sharp slap from Oliver. “ _Ow!_ It wouldn’t happen to be the pizza boy from yesterday, would it?” Oliver didn’t answer. “It was, wasn’t it?” Diggle’s voice dropped into a low murmur. “Whatever happened to staying away from him for his own protection?”

“Obviously, it didn’t work.”

“So … what? You’re gonna pursue a relationship with this guy?”

“ _No._ We’re just going to _stay_ friends.”

Diggle raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t get any impulses to, like, hold his hand”—Oliver’s jaw clenched—“which you did from your reaction.” It’s unnerving, honestly, how Diggle can easily read his body language. “How about—”

“We have bigger things to worry about, Digg,” Oliver snapped. He brushed past Diggle, heading over to Felicity’s Nerd Island of Technology—her words, not Oliver’s—where the blonde woman proceeded to pull up a picture of a dark-haired, handsome, Spanish businessman in his late twenties onto the screen. “This is Carter Mendes, head of a company that has several gyms and provides sporting equipment all over the world.”

“What did he do?” Diggle asked.

“Well,” Felicity started, “There are dozens of missing persons cases all connected to him. You see, the guys taken were, like, warriors. All involved in one form of fighting or other. These guys all went to the same series of gyms—Swift Lodus Gyms. Police have interrogated him, but … Mendes somehow pulled it off for the disappearances linked to his gyms to look like unlucky circumstances. _But_ there was a one-off case of where a hysterical relative showed up at a police station, claiming that Mendes had taken her brother to participate in gladiatorial fights. Against monsters, I should add.”

“That relative died a week later from a heart attack,” Oliver threw in, crossing his arms. “He’s hosting a gala tonight at his city mansion, a chance for interested _investors_ to sponsor his gyms. Despite my family’s recent bad press, Queen Consolidated has been invited. I will be representing my company and Felicity will be my plus one.  While I talk and chat with Mendes, Felicity will be going to his main office to hack into his mainframe and copy all his files.”

“And what will I be doing?” Diggle was totally unfazed by Oliver’s plan. This was the normal for the three of them. Putting the bad guys in jail, hacking into people’s databases, running around the rooftops wearing green leather and carrying a bow and arrows; yep, just their day-to-day routine.

“You’ll be driving us in and out of there.”

Diggle was discontented. “Again with chauffeur duty? Fantastic.”

“Would you rather prefer being my date?”

“No, thank you. I am straight. And you know I have a girlfriend.” Oliver internally grinned at Digg’s reaction. Oliver recalled saying the same thing yesterday. It was funny about how some statements were proven to be wrong in time.

______

Barry hated parties for the high-class. They were so formal, and boring, and regal, and you drank champagne and not good old bourbon and whiskey. It occurred to him that ever since he arrived to the city that he was realizing how many things he disliked and abhorred. Perhaps he was finally growing into his age. Now _that_ was a terrifying thought. The gala was full of the rich and wealthy, dressed to the nines in their immaculate suits and slim dresses, while Barry was stuck in a white swallowtail coat holding a tray full of spirits with the rest of the busboys providing alcohol to the snobs.

“The lords and the ladies enjoy their pretences and formalities and their wealth while the peasants wallow in our poverty and our strife,” a tanned Chinese boy muttered disdainfully as they entered the hall.

“Just remember, one thing poor people have that rich people don’t is the ability to actually not be a stuck-up prissy bitch,” Barry replied in a hushed tone to the boy and the boy laughed. Barry straightened up, plastering a salesman smile on his face and asked the brunette woman in a form-fitting red dress standing nearby, “Champagne, madam?”

The half-hour past like that, with Barry providing champagne and going back to the kitchen to refill his tray with spirits and assorted snacks. The party will last two more hours. Two more hours for Barry to drop the guise and go to Mendes’ office and hack into his database.

Mendes was entertaining his guests, surrounded by potential investors and talking about his latest charity in getting kids off the streets and teaching them self-defence. At least he was kinda hot. Not all the bad guys he knows are good-looking. But his wife is on a whole other level of beauty. Medina Mendes was every model’s wet dream, her looks and body figure picked by Aphrodite herself and dressed in a sleeveless sleek black dressed, the skirt slitted all the way up to her leg.

On one occasion, she caught Barry staring at her and she _winked_. Normally, Barry would be his awkward, fumbling self who didn’t know how to handle flirting—which is so hilariously strange considering his age—but he merely gulped and a shiver went up and down his spine.

He’s been involved with married people—sexually involved. Before he changed his ways, when Barry had another name, an archaic name, he did a lot of bad things.

Barry stared the woman down, his gut instinct telling him to be cautious. His instincts were never wrong. They had saved him from several sticky situations in the past. His attention was taken off the woman when a guest standing next to him complained: “Damn, there’s Queen again with his girl of the season. Must be nice to be so young.”

Indeed it was. Barry’s gaze went over to the arched doorway where Oliver walked in, wearing a suit—why was it that men always wore to suits to events like these?—that fitted every curve of his body, showing off his broad shoulders and strong arms. He looked … good. Barry wasn’t attracted to him. Nope. Not. At. All. He’s slept with gods. Notice the plural there. Still … Oliver was— _Don’t,_ Barry reminded himself. _Don’t do this to yourself again._ There was a blonde by his side, petite and adorable, dressed in a nice pink dress that complimented her, whispered something and Oliver patted her arm, probably comforting her.

Of course. Of course he was dating somebody. Oliver’s taste only extended to women.

Barry turned away before Oliver could see him, going back to tending to the guests. Barry slipped away from the party a few minutes afterwards, navigating himself through the labyrinthine halls of the mansion, climbing up three sets of stairs and finding the secret door next to that just ghastly Botticelli fake. Barry placed his hand on the wall, carefully checked for security system, both mortal and magical, finding a state-of-the art finger print scanner and key pad. Strange. Wouldn’t the witch that Mendes have with him set up some sort of protection ward? Barry took his phone out of his pocket, pulling out the cable fitted inside the device to hook his phone up with the scanner and opened the encryption scanner.

It was amazing the things you could get on Olympazon.com, the online shopping website for the gods. The phone had cost a pretty drachma for Barry. Barry thought it’d be worth the investment. It certainly was. It took a minute to get in. Once he was in, Barry slowly pushed open the door and went to the computer sitting on Mendes’ lavish mahogany—why were rich people obsessed with mahogany furniture?—desk. Barry slid his phone back in his pant pocket and pulled the USB out of it, placing it into one of the data ports. _If_ Barry was discovered by the firewall and the encryption, he didn’t want the personal details on his phone to be found. It would take five minutes tops for the database to be copied and to erase his steps.

Barry started to occupy himself by thinking about what Oliver was going to show him tomorrow. Barry was anticipating it, getting riled up with a child-like excitement by just _thinking_ about it. He said he would give Oliver two days. Tomorrow was the last day. After that, Barry would never have to see him again. The possibility of that happening actually sounded _terrifying_. _Don’t get attached,_ he reminded himself. _Don’t fall in love. It will end badly for both him and you_.

The sound of footsteps approaching drew him from his thoughts. When he checked the computer screen, the scan was done and Barry was free to go. He removed his USB and scurried out the office, closing the door and setting the system back up. Barry quickly behind the sharp turn of the hallway opposite to where the steps and voices where coming from and watched from his spot. He could gain useful intel from this.

Honestly, Barry wasn’t too surprised when Oliver and his blonde Bond girl turned out to be the sourceof the noise. He was not an idiot. It was all clear in the way Oliver talked about the Arrow and Starling, how he had the body of a gladiator and spoke passionately about the city’s crime. And after two thousand years of meeting heroes, it wasn’t that hard to figure who their secret identities were. Barry would just meet the superhero’s other persona and just call them out on it, albeit in private. Barry remembered the time he met Clark Kent and said, _Wow, your civilian wear sucks. Anybody can recognise you._ And the time with Bruce Wayne. Of course Bruce tried to … get rid of him—by trying to run him over with the Batmobile and attempting to plant a bomb in his stomach, thank the gods Alfred stepped in—but Barry made it clear that he wasn’t a tattle-tail. Ahh, good times.

Oliver’s girl had broken through the encryption and went inside the office, no doubt to do what Barry had done earlier.

Barry stepped out of the darkness, making his presence known to Oliver and opened up, “So when do I get to see you in green leather and carrying a bow and arrows?”

Oliver’s sharp, piercing eyes snapped to Barry in an instant, momentarily stunned by the brunet that had shown up out of nowhere. Yeah, that happened with Barry most of the time. “Barry?” Oliver hissed. “What are you doing here?”

Barry gestured to his uniform. “I’m stepping in for a friend of mine. Apparently, there was something going on with Kat’s brother, a drug intervention or something, and so she begged me to fill in for her. As for what I’m doing up here, Mrs Mendes asked me to fetch something from her bedroom and I got lost. You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, would you?”

“No,” Oliver said. “You can’t be here.”

“Why? Because your blonde date is no doubt hacking into Mendes’ system and probably copying his database into a cute little USB for the sake of crime fighting?”

Oh gods, Oliver’s face! _Priceless!_ It was like he was moments from being attacked from Batman. (And Barry had firsthand experience how scary that BAMF was.) “How do you know that?”

“Because you just told me.”

Another lie. He knew all along. Oliver looked at Barry as though he shouldn’t exist. As if he was the most unfathomable thing in his world. Barry only smugly grinned.

“I should knock you out right now,” Oliver pointed out. “Give you a hit hard enough that you won’t remember this moment.”

“You can try,” Barry whispered. “But I can’t guarantee you will succeed, Mr Hood. Or is it Arrow? Sorry, I’m getting confused. Hey, can I meet your girlfriend? She’s cute.”

Oliver’s demeanour grew pinched, a certain hardness in his jaw and his eyes. “Felicity isn’t my girlfriend.”

“Really? You guys make a cute couple.” No, Barry was not envious of her. Jealousy wasn’t very becoming of him. However it was a shade he wore more often than he would care to admit. Oliver’s anger turned into this forlornness, as if Barry liking the idea of him and this Felicity together wounded him. No. Oliver did not like him anymore than he would like a friend.

_“Oliver?”_ The woman—Felicity—called out. Barry peeked in through the door to see the blonde bent over the desk. Her eyes widened at the sight of Barry. Oliver had come into Felicity’s sight, leaning closely to Barry. “Who’s that?”

“I’m Barry,” Barry answered. “I’m Oliver good, totally awesome friend.”

Felicity nodded, bewildered, while Oliver scowled at him.  The grin dropped off of Barry’s face when he heard the creaking of floorboards. Somebody else was coming. Oliver noticed, his heard turning in the direction of the noise. Barry closed the door, _softly without making a noise_ , and ruffled his hair. Barry shrugged off his jacket, tossing it to the ground and undid his bowtie—which by some miracle he found a hotel staff member to put it on him—and his shirt buttons, throwing that and the vest underneath somewhere else.

Oliver, not that he would ever admit, had a light red tinge to his cheek and hissed out, “What the hell are you doing?!”

“This.” And Barry went to his knees, undoing Oliver’s belt buckle and his fly, dragging his pants to the floor. Okay. Okay. Okay! OKAY, HADES’ UNDERPANTS! Of course, Oliver had a big dick. Of course his dark grey briefs would suit that half-hard—Wait. Half-hard? Barry looked up, gulping, and saw Oliver watching him with half-lidded eyes, lips parted in a perfect ‘o’ and swallowing heavily. “Um, don’t freak out.”

“Sure.”

Barry breathed in deeply and placed his hand on the band of Oliver’s underwear, pulled up his shirt to be greeted by the sight of chiselled, defined abs and licked a sensitive spot between the V spot of the man. Barry hadn’t expected Oliver’s hand to come up and tangled itself in Barry’s hair. Barry soldiered on, continuing to mouth at Oliver’s abs and lick, causing the blond man to take a hold of his hair and hold him close. A rush of exhilaration came through Barry, and he licked further down, his hands coming up to—

“Am I interrupting?”

It was at that time the security guard chose to step onto the scene. From the man’s eyes, he would be seeing a shirtless youth servicing Oliver Queen, billionaire playboy, far from the party. The guard would be either thinking _Hey, I didn’t know that guy was gay_ or _Not again_.

“Shit!” Barry swore, scrambling off of Oliver to collect his fallen articles of clothing off the floor. “I am so, so sorry!”

“Yeah,” said Oliver gruffly, doing up his fly. “We tried to find a room.”

“We even tried to go to his car,” Barry muttered.

“Don’t worry.” The guard rolled his eyes, probably used to this sort of this thing. Barry always had a certain amount of admirable respect for the servants for rich people. They got all the juicy information that you could use as blackmail. “I’ve walked in on Mendes and his mistresses and boyfriends many times. This is hardly anything new. If you guys aren’t gone by the time I come back, I’ll have to report you.”

“Right.” Barry nodded enthusiastically, trying to contain the flush going all the way down from his forehead to his neck. “Sorry. Thank you so, so, so much.”

The guard grunted and walked off, muttering something unintelligible under his breath about ‘rich kids’ and ‘screwing wherever they want’. Oliver glared hard at Barry. Yep. Oliver was _not_ happy.

“What the hell were you thinking?”  Oliver demanded, stepping into his personal space. Barry held up his hands as a sign of peace, hoping that the billionaire-slash-vigilante wouldn’t try to kill him. The people who have attempted to put an end to his life either got seriously injured or accidentally—he never killed unless absolutely necessary—killed.  

“I was trying to help,” Barry whispered weakly. 

“Well, it’s not—”

“I’m done,” Felicity whispered, opening the door and unconsciously preventing Oliver’s upcoming tantrum. She took in Barry’s messed-up hair and his current state of half-nakedness as well as the livid expression on Oliver’s face. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Oliver snapped. “Let’s get out of here. And you”—he jabbed a finger in Barry’s direction—“get back to work.”

“Fine,” Barry huffed dramatically and muttered under his breath, “Rude. I try to help out; I get bit in the ass instead.” Barry shook his head in disbelief. He stuck his hand out to Felicity. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Um,” Felicity said, unsure, awkwardly shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you too.”

“I’ll be off then. See you tomorrow, Oliver.” Barry spun on his heel, leisurely strolling away from the two. “Bye!”

___

Before meeting up with Barry for the second day of their tour, Oliver went to Felicity in their base of operations— _‘Don’t call the foundry Arrow Cave, Diggle!’_ —to check out what she found on the copy of the database. Felicity’s brow was furrowed in consternation as she rapidly typed her keyboard furiously. Felicity took pride in being able to hack into any system and decrypt any sort of file which she could do expertly. Her plain frustration aimed at the computer meant trouble.

“How is it going?” Oliver queried, coming to her side.

Felicity growled, her hands threading through her neat blonde hair and messing it up. It was trouble, indeed. “Oh just fine until the database started speaking gibberish,” she yapped irately. Oliver examined the screen. There was no English to be seen. Just a series of cursive Greek-like symbols to be seen. Oliver was fluent in many languages but he had never seen the likes of _that_ before. “I think it’s an old form of Greek and a mix of another language. I’ve ran it through several translators to find out what it is but there’s _nothing!_ I am this close to pulling out my hair. Not that I would. I take very good care of my hair. I brush it and I clean it and I have sty—”

“Felicity,” Oliver interrupted her. “What have you been able to find?”

Felicity’s face turned grim. “Well, our fears have been confirmed,” she said apprehensively. “Gladiator games. But … it’s the guys against, well, I don’t know what. When I try to find out, I get the Greek treatment. I can’t even find out where the games are being held. I keep trying—”

“Try _harder_ , Felicity!” Oliver growled. “Those are the lives of good men being risked in silly games for the entertainment of others!”

“You really think I don’t know that?!” Felicity snapped back furiously, eyes alight in frustration and anger, spinning away from the screens. The stress accumulated over the hours she spent attempting to make sense of the database was coming out. Oliver pulled back, aware that he had pushed Felicity. “You think I don’t know that there are some sick psychos probably enjoying the sight of somebody being killed right _now_?!” And then fight died out in Felicity as the petite woman looked down to her shoes. “I think somebody else hacked into Mendes’ system and copied his database. He was very thorough with covering his tracks. I couldn’t find anything. But I do have some vague idea about who it might be.”

“Who?”

“That guy from last night, your friend.”

Oliver blinked. “You think it’s Barry?”

Felicity nodded in confirmation. “It might not be him. But he might know something. I mean, do you think it’s just a coincidence he showed right when we were breaking into Mendes’ office?”

“He was there because he was getting something from Mrs Mendes’ bedroom. He was sincere. I’m a hard person to lie to.”

Oliver knew Barry wasn’t perfect. He had told him that he was in the military, that he had seen a lot of things, that he often locked horns with his family. Barry knew what it was like to change from devastating events and knew words often provided little comfort to those hurt. He was light, even when the shadows tried to cloud that shine. To Oliver, Barry was … real. He wasn’t superficial. He was honest in a way others weren’t.

Felicity’s lips thinned as the next words came carefully and cautiously, “But people have slipped by you before. Like your mom.” Oliver scowled dangerously, not liking the example Felicity had provided. “Just saying. When it comes to people you love lying to, you deny it, at first, because you don’t want it to be true. You don’t want your perception of those people to be destroyed when you find out the truth.”

“I don’t love him.” Oliver wasn’t in love with Barry, even if he was his soul mate. He didn’t _want_ to be, at least. Oliver knew that because of his secret that having chances at a working relationship were slim, that loving a person like that was too dangerous for the both of them.

“I wasn’t saying you were in love with him,” Felicity said. “I was saying that you might care for him greatly. Like family.”

“Yeah, like family,” Oliver repeated blandly. “Look, I need to go but I’ll consider your point.”

Felicity smiled. “Thanks.”

Oliver left the base, dialling Laurel’s number on his phone as he entered the dance floor space in Verdant. Laurel picked up on the third ring, her voice brusquely greeting him, “Laurel Lance.”

“Hey Laurel,” Oliver replied casually. “I was calling in on you to see how the clinic was. It was a mess last time I was there.”

“Yeah, well, it’s better now,” said Laurel. “Like _really_ better. I come in this morning and I find the mess from the other day all cleaned up and everything in order. Files we thought we lost returned and no trace of the pranks. Like nothing had happened.”

“Really?”  _Important files and documents could be lost. Anybody, an intern, a fellow lawyer, me, could just waltz in and take whatever they were hired to take,_ Oliver recalled Barry saying when they ate in the café the other day. “Did anything not turn up or wasn’t found?”

“Why are you asking that?”

“I was thinking about how strange a mass pranking was taking place at a legal clinic. Kind of raises questions.”

Laurel paused before answering, “Well, Misaki still doesn’t have her case file back. Thanks for asking me that. See you later, Oliver.” And Laurel hung up on him.

“Yeah, see you later …” Oliver put the phone away and headed out of Verdant. He had somebody to meet after all.

_____

“Mommy!” A girl, a toddler around about three or four in a ruffled pink dress, squealed, running up from her seat to her mother who had entered through the café door. The woman bent down and picked the girl, lifting her up into her arms. The woman smiled brightly and kissed the girl’s forehead. A man, fair haired and plain looking, walked up to them and joined in on the happy scene.

Barry looked at them longingly, old memories stirring and loneliness and grief plaguing him. He had a family and a home and everything nice and beautiful until … something pretty damn tragic happened. Barry looked away. There were things that were better off _not ever_ thinking about. 

“Why the long face?” Oliver. Barry had been waiting for the older(looking, anyway) man in the café. He was five minutes late. Funny. Barry was usually the one who was late, despite his super speed.

“What face?” Barry smiled. “You mean this handsome face? I wouldn’t say it’s particularly long, just angular.”

“Ha-ha,” Oliver replied flatly, not returning Barry’s humour. Somebody wasn’t happy. “How funny.”

“Hey, is something up?”

“You could say that,” Oliver told him enigmatically. Barry raised a questioning eyebrow, beginning to steel himself. He had _that_ tone, the one that usually involve somebody getting suspicious of the immortal. He should have known this was coming. He should have been smart enough not to engage with Oliver at Mendes’ party. “There is this matter at work. A file actually. Queen Consolidated gained access over it from another company but we’re having trouble understanding a few things. And there’s another complication.”

Sweat gathered at the back of his neck. Strange. Barry did not do nervous. He was a master liar. “Really? I don’t think I’d be much help. But, um, I’m happy to listen.”

“How nice.” Oliver smiled, all false and sarcastic. Shit. He knew that Barry was lying. “As I was saying before, there’s another complication. My company thinks that there’s another group, we don’t know who, that already acquired this file. And that they fully understand it.”

“I’m sorry,” Barry breathed out, face with regret and guilt. “For lying to you. It was necessary for what I’m doing.”

“And what would that be?” Oliver leaned in close, lowering his voice to a hissing whisper. Oliver was … hurt. Genuinely hurt that Barry had lied to him. When others had found out that Barry’s life story was nothing but bull shit, they screamed at him, felt betrayed and all of that other jazz. For Oliver, it appeared to be closely linked to his emotions, taking an emotional toll on him.

_“OMIGAWD!”_

The tense moment was ruined by that one squeal. A pair of fan girls, wearing I HEART OLIVER QUEEN t-shirts and matching hats, ran up to them, rotted yellowy teeth grinning and eyes alight with excitement. There were nametags on their shirts. One read: Katie, Oliver Queen Fan Club Member. Another said: Janni, Oliver Queen Fan Club Member. Oliver Queen had fan girls? Judging from the puzzled look on Oliver’s face, he was thinking the same thing as well.

“It’sss Oliver Queen!” shrieked Katie. “Sssee, Janni! I told you it was him!” Why were they protracting their S’s? More importantly, why were fan girls so freakin’ loud? Barry winced at the volume of their voice.

“Look at hisss ssskin,” Janni cooed. Her gaze fell to Barry and … Barry started getting scared. He had been to Comicon. He had seen their yaoi crazy fans. Saying that Roy Mustang and Edward Elric had a touching father-son relationship and were fully platonic to RoyEd shippers was one mistake he wasn’t willing to make again. “Omigawd, he hasss a boyfriend! We can write fanfiction!”

“He’sss ssso close I can touch him.” Katie reached out to Oliver. Her forearm was turning green, reptilian scales quickly emerging and her manicured nails growing to be gnarled and old lady disgusting. Katie’s eyes slit in a snake-like manner, Janni’s following suit. Oliver grew pale, as though he saw a ghost. He was seeing a monster.

Oliver could see through the veil.

Barry shoved her hand away and shouted out, “Don’t touch him!” Barry’s outburst had brought them attention to them, if the fan girls hadn’t already. Barry got up, lugging Oliver up with him, gripping his hand tightly. “We have to go. _Now_.”

Knowing the no-nonsense tone Barry was taking, Oliver went along with the immortal without complaint, the fan girls hot on their heels. Barry wondered how celebrities coped with their fans. There had to be some trick to dealing with it all. Barry yelped unexpectedly when Oliver dragged them to an alley.

“Oliver!” Barry cried. “We have to stick to populated areas, like streets!”

“I know a shortcut to a safe place,” Oliver informed him curtly.

“Oh, you mean the secret basement in Verdant?” Oliver whirled back to face Barry ferociously. “Yeah, not as secret as you think it is!”

“How do you know about that?”

“You own Verdant.” Barry tugged Oliver along, cautiously taking in everything around them from the sounds of the city to the movement of the wind around them. “Seemed like a reasonable place to run an alibi for a hero like you. Found out about the secret basement. Checked your security on your base. Dude, it sucks. By my standards, at least.”

“Felicity told me that place was impenetrable!” Oliver barked.

Barry smirked impishly at Oliver. “No place is impenetrable to me.”

Oliver glared at him. The familiar reptilian hissing alerted Barry, giving him enough time to remove the knife he kept at the back of his pants and force Oliver back a few steps before Katie and Janni slammed violently into the wall of the alleyway, creating several long and spidery cracks in the surface. Katie and Janni had morphed to their full monster form—Scythian dracaenae. Their legs had become two lengthy snake tails and their skin all the way up to their neck scaled with emerald and amber flecks. The only thing ‘human’ retained were their faces and their tacky t-shirts and hats.

“Oliver,” Barry remarked in wonder. “You have the craziest fan girls.”

“Come with ussss …” hissed Katie, glaring at Barry.

“Or we’ll make you!” threatened Janni.

“Yeah … no.”

Barry let go of Oliver’s hand and ran up to the dracaenae. He came at them as a blur too fast to catch. He ducked under Katie’s swinging claw, bringing his knife up to slice through the thick skin of her arm. Drakon teeth did always make good knives when hunting monsters. Katie didn’t even have time to scream when Barry plunged the knife into her chest and dragged it upwards, making a deep sizable gash in her chest. Katie finally screeched out in pain, and then promptly exploded in flourish of yellow sand.

“KATIE!” Janni wailed out in grief.

Barry used her distraction to his advantage, driving his knife into her action and pulling it across, spilling out green ichor—the blood of dracaenae. Janni followed her sister in a death, exploding into sprinkles of gold. Barry was covered from top to bottom in gold glitter. He had Katie and Janni corpse dust on him. _Ewwwwwwww …_ Barry groaned, dusting the glitter off of him disgruntledly. In the back of his mind, he reasoned that getting this result was better than having spilled blood and guts on him.

“What …” Oliver breathed, blinking several times to see if what he was seeing happened to be real. He was as shocked as anyone to see his friend use his super speed which he saved for special occasions and fight and win against two snake-like beasts who also happened to be his biggest fans. “What the hell was that?”

“Dracaenae,” Barry answered. “There’ll be more after us. We have to go.”

_______

Oliver had no idea what to perceive Barry as. The image of war-worn, young-looking and solemn perky man had been ruined by the many lies he had told Oliver and the events that occurred in the last hour. You know, the one with the snake-fan girls and the super speed and killing them and the girls just _poof-_ ing off in a cloud of gold dust.

Oliver didn’t ask Barry any questions to the place he leading the vigilante to and Barry didn’t say a word to Oliver the whole way there. They stopped at a fancy hotel, heading straight to the elevators. Barry punched in the button for the top floor. 

“Are you going to explain to me what the hell happened in the alley?” Oliver asked. “And be honest about it?”

“What would you do if I said this was all just a dream caused by all the stress of your night-time activities?” Barry inquired.

“Would you really still lie to me?”

“I …” Barry said and he pressed his lips together, all remorseful and pained. As if he had the right to have that sort of face right now. “I’m sorry. If I had been honest with you from the start, you would have thought I was lying. And I didn’t know if you could … take it. There have been other cases of mortals—”

“Mortals?” Oliver repeated.

“Yes, mortals. Sometimes when mortals find out about the truth about … about the _other_ world, their sanity seemed to … disappear.”

“You thought I would go insane?”

“That and other things.”

Oliver wondered uneasily at what ‘other things’ entailed. The elevator stopped at Barry’s floor and the two men got out, walking up to the dark-haired man’s door. Barry put the key card through the door and it opened for him. Barry went inside first, Oliver going in after him. The penthouse was luxuriously and lavish, everything up to the standard of rich CEOs and spoilt wealthy boys and girls.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Barry announced. “I gotta get the dracaenae dust off of me. You can … You can watch TV and do whatever you want. Don’t call the cops.” Did Barry think he was an idiot? “They’re not gonna believe you. And don’t touch my phone or my laptop. They’re booby trapped and you may possibly die.” Barry turned away, walking off in the direction of the shower.

“Barry,” Oliver called after him. Barry looked back.

“What is it?”

“Don’t run off. I still need you to explain a _lot_ of things to me.”

Barry wryly grinned, the smile coming off as strained and tired. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

Oliver checked out Barry’s bedroom after that, looking for clues for who Barry—if that really was his name which Oliver seriously doubted—really was and the work he conducted on Mendes. Barry’s room was luxurious and everything else rich people loved. It looked barely used and empty, aside from the bags and the rumpled sheets. Barry’s laptop was comfortably inside a brown leather laptop case, a sticker saying Chinese characters for ‘Touch at Your Own Risk, Dumbass’ slapped across the front. _And don’t touch my phone or my laptop_ , Oliver recalled Barry saying earlier. _They’re booby trapped and you may possibly die._ Oliver decided against touching the laptop.

Barry’s bag, a weathered grey duffle bag, was on the floor at the side of his bed. Oliver crouched, hands reaching out for the bag. He hoped that the bag wasn’t booby trapped. It would be really inconvenient if he died. He pulled down the zipper, or at least tried to. No matter what he did, the zipper would not open. Oliver spent the next minute futilely tugging at the zipper before finally getting that Barry must have done something to the zipper.

Barry left the shower next to the bedroom, appearing in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist and the water dripping off him. His body was toned and lean. He was all sinew and grace, like a warrior ballerina. The scar was still there, appearing like tear spanning down from his shoulder to his lower torso diagonally. Oliver saw it the night before …

Their close encounter at Mendes’ mansion came rushing back at him. The image of Barry on his knees in front of Oliver, shirtless and hair messed up. The sensation of Barry’s tongue on his skin. Lust wasn’t a feeling he was accustomed to nowadays. The memory of Barry had kept him up all night that time and masturbating certainly didn’t help. It made it worse.

Oliver stood up and leaned against the wall, trying to appear indifferent. There was this glint in Barry’s eyes that knew better. Oh God …

“Why are you trying to open my bag?” Barry asked suspiciously.

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s understandable but you’re not gonna get nowhere on that front,” Barry responded, walking over to the bag. The zipper went down easily for him. “It’s enchanted and magical. The bag knows who its owner is.”

“Enchanted,” Oliver echoed dryly, disenchanted. “Of course. What next?”

“Man-eating birds?” Barry joked. “Which I hope doesn’t happen. The Stymfalían birds are a _bitch_ to get rid of. _Uuuggh …_ ” Barry shivered in memory. Oliver wondered with morbid curiosity what happened to Barry and the Stymfalían birds. Barry pulled out an old Star Wars T-shirt and black jeans out of the bag and zipped it back up. “Would you mind …?” Barry’s index finger spun around in circles. Oliver complied, turning around and trying his hardest not to turn around to sneak a peak.

The _whoosh_ -ing of air was heard and Oliver looked back to see Barry all dressed, dry and grinning sheepishly at the blond.

“How did you do that?” Oliver probed.

“I have super speed.”

“How did you get that?”

“I … I get it from my dad,” Barry mumbled. “Take a seat wherever you want in the room. I’ll explain some things to you since you’re already forming questions in your mind.” Oliver took to sitting on the desk chair and studying Barry and his body language intensely. Barry moved with a rare elegant speed, reminiscent of a gazelle but somehow more … supernaturally than that. There was a brief rush of air next to him, Barry collecting his laptop off the desk, and then the younger man sitting cross-legged on the mattress, laptop open in front of him. “So shoot,” Barry prompted.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my city?” Oliver interrogated him. 

Barry blinked, surprised by how direct the question was. “Straight to the point.” Barry typed in a few keys on the laptop. He looked up from the screen to Oliver and answered, “I don’t—I mean, it’s been a long time so I don’t exactly remember my _actual_ name.”

Oliver was incredulous. “How do you not remember your own name?!”

Barry nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been a long time.”

“How long?”

“Um …”

“ _How—long?”_ Oliver gritted out.

“Vahzhuyesolds,” Barry rushed out, quicker than humanly possible.

“Sorry, what? I didn’t get a word of that. Say it again. _Slower_ this time and at a normal pace.”

Barry breathed in and out, his hands wringing. “I’m over two thousand years.” Oliver was thrown for a loop. “Actually, I’m nearing three thousand years and I should be certainly past that in, like, a month. During that time, I can forget simple things. Like my name, for example. I can’t remember my name. I run on many different names during the past few millennia. Jonathan Mercy, Sebastian Smythe, Alexandros Kartsounis and _Barry Allen_ are just to name a few.”

Okay. His soul mate was over two thousand years. That’s certainly older than Oliver would _ever_ be. That meant that … Barry was old enough to be his ancestor’s ancestor. Wow, that was—Wow, just _wow._ Oliver wondered what would come next with eerie fascination.

“You’re not freaking out? The last guy I told, he said …” Barry trailed off, eyes lost in memories, and he cleared his throat. “It didn’t end well is all I’m saying.”

Oliver’s hand graced the length of his forearm. “Well, you see, there’s this really, really old legend surrounding my family and there’s this … _condition_ connected to it, so, you know, I’ve had some experience about all—all—well, all of this.”

“What legend?”

“My questions are the ones being answered, not yours,” Oliver snapped. Barry winced at Oliver’s defensiveness. “Those monsters back at the alley, how … I’m sorry, those things—”

“Shouldn’t exist?” Barry finished. “Yes, they shouldn’t. Monsters and men like me were obscured into legend a long time ago. Oliver, you remember all those times you heard about the Labours of Heracles, Persephone and Hades, the Odyssey of Odysseus?” Oliver nodded numbly. “It’s all real. Every single Greek legend, spanning all the way to the dawn of time and to present, were all real. Of course, some things were embellished and others forgotten, but at its rawest form, every story you know concerning Greek mythology is real.

“You see, my world is hidden from yours. Those people in the café didn’t notice the dracaenae like you and I did. All they saw was a pair of crazy fan girls. There’s this invisible shroud concealing the supernatural from the natural. It’s called the Veil. And sometimes there are cases of mortals, like Jason and William Shakespeare—Yes, _that_ guy—that can see through the Veil.”

Oliver stared long and hard at Barry, looking for any sign of a lie and saw only hesitance to tell the truth. Oliver understood why Barry said that mortals went insane if they found out the truth about the world—sorry, _worlds_. It was too incredible to be believed.

“Sometimes,” Barry went on, “this ability of Sight, and that’s sight with a capital S, kicks in when the mortal is older, sometimes it only lasts during childhood, or—or if they have contact with somebody of the other world. It’s very random with whoever has the condition. Your first meeting with me may have kick started that ability. And for that, I am so _very, very, very_ sorry.”

“Why?” Oliver demanded. Oliver was _fated_ to meet Barry. Was he now saying that it was better they had never met at all? “You wish you never met me? Wouldn’t be the first time somebody said that to me,” he said spitefully.

“What? Of course not!” Barry exclaimed, face red. “Meeting you was—” Barry stopped and bit his lip. “What I mean really is, once you know the truth, there is no way of ever unknowing it. You’ll be stuck being able to see through the Veil for the rest of your life and that ability can bring the attention of monsters to you. Ones worse than the dracaenae we encountered in the café.”

“Your concern for my safety is touching but unneeded,” Oliver bit out. “I have two other questions: _what_ are you and what do you know about Mendes?”

“I’m a demigod.”

“A what?”

“A _demigod_ ,” Barry repeated slowly. “You know, a half-human, half-god. Sometimes when the gods fornicate with humans, they produce half-godly spawn with great powers. Like Heracles,” he spat out that name with punctuated distaste, “and Perseus. Except I’m not a son of Zeus.”

Oliver got it. The speed, the remark about his base’s security … “You’re the son of Hermes.”

The side of Barry’s mouth curved up. “I shouldn’t even be telling you all this. I could get in _serious_ trouble. Well, serious-er trouble. Oh _Gods_.” Barry rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m gonna be tied to a rock and have vultures pick at my innards,” he moaned miserably.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Look what happened to Arachne. She lost against Athena because she was a bragging bitch and got turned into the world’s first spider. Narcissus was so vain that he was stuck looking at his reflection until the end of his life. And food and water is always out of the reach of Tantalus. If it is one thing the gods love doing, it’s coming up with fascinating forms of punishment.”

“You’re scared of them,” Oliver realized. “Of the gods.”

“Not completely. They are immensely powerful. The way they use that power isn’t sometimes so wise.”

“Mendes,” reminded Oliver.

“Ah, yes, Mendes. As you might already know, he’s running an underground fight ring in the city. Look, are you sure about—”

“Barry, this is my city. The people in this city are at danger. Knowing what I know now, there is no way I am not involving myself in all of this,” Oliver declared in finality. “I may not have any other special power than being able to see through the Veil and I may be just a guy with a bow and arrows but it is not going to stop me from going after Mendes.”

Barry looked at him as if he was insane and the most incredible thing to ever exist. “You love this city a lot, don’t you?”

“It means a lot to me. This place is home. No matter where you go, no matter how far you try to keep yourself from it, home is always with you.”

Barry’s expression was suddenly vacant and far-off. “Yeah,” he murmured, almost inaudibly. “Home …” Barry snapped out of his daze, his fingers flying to his computer and rapidly typing the keys. “Your Girl Friday, Felicity, she must have ran into these symbols. No doubt she’s going crazy over it.” A light shot out of the laptop and symbols—the same one he saw on Felicity’s laptop—hovered in the air. Barry’s laptop had holograms. Felicity would go crazy for that laptop. “This language is mixture of Ancient Greek, Persian and Arabic. I like to call it Preekabic. It’s one of this world’s many dead languages, but in mine, it’s still often. It’s like the Chinese of the supernatural world. Luckily, I’m fluent in this stuff.”

“So what does it say?”

“It’s a detailed recipe on how to make the world’s best human blood cake,” Barry told him. Oliver’s face scrunched up, wondering whether or not Barry was kidding. “I’m serious. But really it’s all one advanced login. All you do is just pick out the right words. In English, the closest translation is Kardashian.”

“Now you’re messing with me.”

“No, I’m not. So blah, blah, blah, computer crap you’re totally not interested in. So the fights are mortal against monster and most of the time, the mortal dies. I saw a match. It’s not pretty.”

“Wait? You saw a match? And you didn’t do anything?”

“Not without having over a thousand creatures and monsters on me. And it’s underground. Not a lot of exits.” The holographs changed, turning into the schematics of a colosseum. “This is the blueprint of the battle stadium. Classy, it is. The Romans did turn the sport mainstream. The psychos that did this had to pay homage, I guess.” The lower ground levels lit up were highlighted red. “This is where the prisoners being held. According to the database, there are about fifty of them being held. About forty of them are scheduled tonight in a cage fight against a Nemean Lion, a hydra and manticore. If they do manage kill one, the guys who run the place will add another. It’s not going to be pretty.”

“We have to get them out before the fight starts.”

“Way ahead of you,” Barry agreed. “I requested my, um, friends to help but, no dice, for some reason. No matter how fast I am, I can’t deal with those two things at once. On the bright side, my friends will handle the clean-up.”

Oliver moved from the chair, coming to tower over Barry and leaning down close to the immortal. Barry eyed him carefully, putting the laptop away.

“Were you ever going to tell me the truth, Barry?” Oliver questioned him.

Barry’s breathing hitched and his tongue swiped his lips, Oliver’s eyes tracking the movement. “No.”

Oliver pulled back and stood in silence. Of course he wouldn’t. Oliver hardly blamed him. All of the things Barry said was all the stuff of fairy tales and nobody would believe him. The fact that Barry lied twisted a knife in Oliver’s gut. He _lied_.

“What were you even doing hanging out with me?”

“I … I … I wasn’t going to use you. I just wanted to know somebody _normal_. Not some random one-night stand or, you know, involved in the supernatural business,” Barry admitted. “I wanted a friend. And, I don’t know, you stood out. To me, you were like the only human in a museum of stone statues. I swear on my mom’s grave that’s the truth.”

Oliver was having a hard time believing Barry. He had betrayed by people he cared about before. “I’ll see you at my base. I trust you know where it is.”

Barry nodded grimly and then whizzed off for a second, returning with the knife he used earlier on the dracaenae and holding it out to Oliver. “For protection. Take a cab wherever you’re going and if you do see something through the Veil, look away. _They_ will notice.”

“Sure.” Oliver took the knife, stowing it away in the back of his pants. “I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah. Later.”

Oliver walked past the immortal, leaving him in silence. Oliver gave Barry one last glance. The man had his hand covering his mouth and his arm tightly hugging his abdomen. The urge to comfort Barry came unexpectedly to Oliver. He wouldn’t. Not after finding out all of this.

_____

Oliver managed Felicity to leave after some convincing. The blonde was obviously very exhausted and Oliver didn’t one of his closest friends passing out on him. Felicity had spent the entire morning trying to find out what was on the database. She wasn’t able to figure out the password on the passcode screen. This was technology Felicity had never seen the likes of before. Felicity was adamant that she wouldn’t leave but after a pleading look from Oliver, she finally did. Oliver couldn’t tell her the truth. The truth that was they were dealing was so far out of their depth and the only way to save fifty men was to trust some … immortal demigod called Barry Allen.

Everything that occurred in the past hour sounded so ridiculous. The snake women, the gods, the truth about Barry. Barry wasn’t even his real name! What guy from Ancient Greece would be called Barry? It’d be like calling a potato Bob. Oliver sank against the chair, dog-tired from … the world Barry was involved in. He had seen weird things before. Guys with super strength, the party antics of rich frat boys, and plenty of other stuff from his time on Lian Yu and as the Arrow, however all of that had a logical part of it that made it easier to accept than Greek gods and monsters.

He needed a shower … and coffee. Or bourbon. Bourbon would be very nice right about now. Oliver acted on that, on the first part anyway. Alcohol would hinder his performance. Oliver took a long, well-deserved shower he had somewhere down in the basement, trying to revel in the hot water steaming against his skin.

When he left the shower, his sweatpants hanging around his waist, he found Barry was sitting on a table, looking through holograms of the Mendes’ colosseum on his laptop and a black duffle bag lying next to him. He saw Oliver, have him a quick once-over—his super speed probably made it last longer—and shyly smiled. 

“Hey,” Barry greeted him.

“Hi,” Oliver replied flatly, walking to the mannequin that held his suit.

“Wait, don’t change yet.” In a flash, Barry was by his side, holding up a black marker.

Oliver pointed to the object in Barry’s hand. “What’s that?”

“It’s Magic Marker. Like, a literal magic marker. I need to mark you. Temporarily. The marks will fade in like a day. You need it to hide your scent from monsters and boost your abilities.”

“They’re steroids.”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say …” Oliver gave Barry an unimpressed face. “Yeah, it’s steroids. Look, I’m not encouraging the use of performance enhancing drugs or Magic Markers, but we’re up against monsters and a witch. A witch. And I have no idea how powerful. I’ll be handling her since I have the most experience with those— _witches_.”

Witches. Right. _Fantastic_. “You don’t have the best experience with them?”

“Let’s just say that when I say witches, I like to replace the ‘w’ with a ‘b’. Now, stay still,” he ordered the vigilante. It felt like any other marker drawing on his skin. Barry was so focused, eyes narrowed and handling the Magic Marker with precision. Some of the symbols were curlicue and ancient-looking while others was mixture of Greek symbols and there was a few that he didn’t know what to make of. “The next one goes on your wrist,” Barry informed, taking a hold of Oliver forearm—the one with the timer—and saw the numbers _00.00.00_ on his skin.

“That’s …” Oliver started to say.

“ _Oh_ ,” Barry said, distantly staring at the numbers. “So that explains how you could see through the Veil.”

“What do you mean?” Oliver asked.

Barry smiled ruefully. “My old friend, a guy from a _long, long_ time ago, had one of these. A soul mate timer. It was a gift from Aphrodite. His name was Cerces. He was a son of Apollo. Which explains the whole archery thing with you.”

Wait, wait, wait. So on top of having a soul mate timer that stopped when he met Barry the Immortal Demigod Son of Hermes, his ancestor was _Apollo_? Seriously, that guy? Oliver had, of course, heard of the god of the Sun and had Apollo always struck him as an irresponsible, rich party boy.

“Right, my several times great grandfather is none other than Apollo, how freaking _fantastic_ ,” he remarked dryly.

“Well, you could get worse. There’s Ares and that guy is all about blood and war and killing people.” Barry had a valid point. “Lucky you to have a soul mate. Must be nice to have somebody out there for you,” he added with a hint of envious longing.

“Yeah, it’s nice.”

Barry arched one eyebrow, and looked back down to his arm, drawing three interlinked circles underneath his timer. “Look, you have to get the fighters out exactly while I take care of the witch and her guys. You may face some monsters along the way so I called in a favour from a buddy over at one of the weaponry forges of Hephaestus and got you this.” Barry capped the marker and went over to his duffle bag, pulling out a quiver of bronze arrows. “Surprise!”

“You got me arrows?”

“Magical arrows. Your normal arrows won’t work on monsters so, um, happy birthday!” Barry ran—using his super speed—right up to Oliver, holding out the arrows.

“My birthday was a couple of months ago.”

“Happy late birthday then.”

Oliver accepted the quiver, taking one arrow out of the quiver. It felt incredibly light in his hands yet the design was so deceptive. By looking at what the arrow, he could tell it was capable of cutting somebody’s head off. Magical arrows. Amazing. “Cool.” He inserted the arrow back in the quiver. The fit Felicity would throw over this. “Are you really going to wear that?”

It looked like Barry was going casual to the colosseum, wearing a Batman printed t-shirt, comfortable blue jeans and a pair of ankle-high Converses with faux feathers attached to the sides. Oliver scrutinised the large bat symbol on Barry’s shirt. Why was he wearing a _Batman_ shirt? Dozens of t-shirts in the world and Barry chose a _Batman_ shirt. Sure, Oliver had respect for the fellow vigilante but he had no idea what Barry was thinking when he was picking shirts.

“Is there a problem with my shirt?” Barry inquired, a quirk in his lips telling Oliver he was smirking.

“ _No_ ,” Oliver gritted out. “I’m sure Batman will appreciate you wearing his t-shirt.”

“Dude, are you jealous?”

“What?” Oliver exclaimed. “ _No!_ ”

Barry nodded along slowly. “Mmmm-hmmm.” And then he pranced off. Asshole.

“Whatever.” Oliver rolled his eyes, turning away from Barry and roughly taking his shirt off the mannequin. “Let’s just get this over with.”

______

The large bright red truck that largely resembled Optimus Prime in vehicle mode if he ever crossed the Sahara Desert and was forty years older drove down the highway. Barry watched it go on his spot on top of the overpass. Cars went past him, the driver not taking notice of the man standing by the road. Veil manipulation was a handy skill a demigod could have. His hand went to the drakon fang knife tucked around his belt. He collected it back from Oliver earlier, needing it for the task he was about to do. 

The truck went under the overpass and Barry jumped off, managing to grab a hold of the back of the truck. _Creeaaak …_ The truck’s doors ominously creaked. Barry caught a glimpse of what was inside, big golden bulls. Barry squeaked and pushed the doors back, locking it. _Keep calm and don’t let the bulls out,_ he thought. Ha. That would make a good t-shirt. Barry climbed to the top of the truck, using his momentum to sprint across the surface of the metal. He reached the ceiling where two grumpy lycans were driving the top. One at the wheel and the other sitting shot gun.

Barry crashed through the driver’s window, kicking the lycan sitting there in the head. The lycan growled, his claw flying at Barry. For Barry, they were moving in slow motion. Barry unsheathed his knife, driving it through the tough cranium of the lycan’s head and slicing it through the throat of his friend. Within half a second, monster dust all over him. _Again._ He just had a shower. Gods.

Barry huffed and continued the rest of the drive to Starling. He entered the urban scenery of the city soon enough. Now where was Oliver? He was supposed to be—

_THUD!_

Oh, there he was. Barry rolled down the window near the shotgun seat and soon enough Oliver’s green clad figure was through.

“Hey,” Barry greeted him warmly. “Nice night tonight. Have any special plans?”

“Just drive,” grunted Oliver in return.

Barry wondered if this was going to be Oliver’s attitude to him from now on. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was. Seriously, Barry had lied over and over again to him and Oliver was clearly somebody who had been lied to enough. Barry felt guilty and ashamed. He betrayed Oliver’s tentative trust in him. After this, Barry would leave and _never_ come back to Starling City. Oliver probably had a nice girl as his soul mate. Perhaps it was that Felicity girl. She would be nice. In fact, she’d be fitting and absolutely perfect. What a stroke of faith that he would happen to meet one of Cerces’ descendants. Eras past, Alec—the name he had been running on back then—was vaguely let down when Cerces wasn’t his soul mate. Back then, Alec didn’t know much of a burden his immortality would be and it was fortunate that Cerces wasn’t the One.

_(Stormy blue eyes contemptuously focused on them as a possessive hand gripped his hair. “Who would ever want a lying, cheating, killing whore like you to be their lover?”_ )

“Barry?” Oliver called out his name.

“What?” Barry snapped out of his flashback. He noticed his hands were gripping the wheel tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. “Oh, sorry. Lost in thought, I was.” Barry chuckled, hoping to appear as his usual perky self. “Don’t worry. We’ll be there soon enough.”

Going through the front door would draw too much attention to them so they going through the back door Mendes’ people used to load monster in and out of the colosseum. Barry wished the plan was more organized with a higher chance of success. He did his best to put as many protective and healing Marks on Oliver using the Magic Marker and all the arrows he got from Rigby the Cyclopes were the best quality.

“We’re here,” Barry announced as they drove into an alley. “Save your arrows. I’ll handle the guys.”

“Fine.”

Barry pressed down on the brakes, halting the truck. At the end of the alley, the metal roller blinds rolled up and two dracaenae walked out. Barry kicked open the driver’s door and ran out. Within two seconds, the dracaenae and the guys who were going to herd the Colchis Bulls in and especially those who were about to trip off the alarm were either send back to Tartarus to regenerate or knocked out. Barry went back to the doorway, arms crossed and smiling.

“You can come out now,” he called out to Oliver. “We’ve got about ten minutes or so before somebody notices something’s wrong.”

Oliver hopped out of the truck, walking over to Barry unhappily. Or at least the look on his face said so.

“Stick to the plan. Don’t do anything stupid,” Barry told him urgently. Oliver rolled his eyes. Barry narrowed his eyes, annoyed. “I’m serious, Oliver. I don’t want to go to your funeral.”

Oliver softened at that and went off, in search of the gladiator cells. Barry hoped that the monsters that were bound to come after Oliver were weak and not too much trouble. Oliver had his part to do and so did Barry.

**_______**

One moment he had been running through the colosseum, sending the occasional monster here and there back to Tartarus, and the wall next to him exploded, great flames jumping out. Barry was thrown against another wall roughly, spidery cracks formed by the impact. There was that common ringing in his ears that usually accompanied explosions and a hazy quality to the world around him that quickly faded away.

His battle reflexes jumped into action and he scrambled away in time for a boulder to come flying at the spot where had just been lying. More boulders came zooming at him and Barry dodged them every time until he had been forced out to the arena. The colosseum was empty and barren, and the arena looked like a great expanse of dead, dry land dusted in sand. Barry instantly knew that somebody wanted him in the arena. Who?

“Up here, little hero,” a woman’s voice melodically called him from above. Barry’s eyes flew up to the gorgeous black-haired woman in a stunning midnight blue dress slitted up high enough to reveal her left leg and a black fur shawl standing on one of the lavish viewing decks for those rich enough to afford it. Medina Mendes, Carter Mendes’ wife. “I believe you’re looking for my husband and me.”

“Yeah,” replied Barry. “And I’m not a hero. Far from it actually.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve heard the rumours from the nymphs and the dryads,” Medina assured him. “You run by a lot of names, but not one ever truly belonged to you. Do you remember when you used to be called the Black Lightning? I wonder how you sleep at night, with so much innocent blood on your hands.”

Barry bristled at the mention of the name. It was a miracle he could even sleep. “It was. What used to be your name, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Medina’s lips curved up in a sinister smile. The slimy sensation from the party when Medina caught his eyes came back and Barry internally shook in terror. “Medea.”

“The crazy bitch who killed her kids just to get back at her husband?” Barry said without thinking. Oh gods, he was going to regret saying that. Medea scowled distastefully at his words. “What the Hades are you doing in the entertainment business?”

“A girl’s gotta make a living,” was her answer before she swung her hand like a baseball pitcher and a large ball of fire was hurled straight at him. Barry dodged the giant rock and nearly would have ran straight into a giant hunk of rock that rose out of the earth if he hadn’t reacted in time.

“Why don’t you come down here? Maybe we can have some fun.”

The expression on Medea’s face didn’t mean anything good. “Yes,” she agreed. “It’s been a while since I had a good workout.”

____

The walls around Oliver rumbled ominously. A loud spectacular _BANG_ had made him _almost_ jump.  The men being held prisoner in the colosseum were scurrying out of the cages they were being held in. They were scarred, bloodied and bruised. They reminded him of how he looked like when he came back from the island. The gladiators all gathered outside of the cage, all expectantly looking at Oliver for their way out.

“Follow me and stay close to each other,” he ordered. Oliver led them away, through the maze-like corridors of the colosseum. Growling resonated through the air and the vigilante quickly notched an arrow, aiming it at the source of the noise. The arrow he let fly had found it straight through the chest of some weird giant cat thing that dropped from the ceiling to the ground and evaporated into dust.

“How come it took one second for ya to kill that thing when it took me half an hour?” a gladiator grumbled at Oliver’s side. He was dark-skinned and had a giant scar spanning down from his eye to the curve of his mouth.

“Magic arrows,” Oliver replied.

“Right, of course,” the gladiator said dryly. “What about the fucking witch? She’s gonna notice we’re gone.”

“My …” What was Barry now? A friend? An accomplice? An associate? “friend’s keeping her busy. Come on.”

More creatures stood in their way. They weren’t of the big variety. Most were humanoid in their shape, varying from scaled to furry to just plain weird. Oliver had fought warriors, not monsters, but in the end it wasn’t so hard to imagine them both the same thing. Both wanted his head off his shoulders and his heart torn out of his chest and instead of knives and guns, monsters had claws and razor sharp teeth.

More earth-shattering noises erupted from the arena and suddenly fearful concern for Barry gnawed at him. How far did his immortality extend to? Did it mean he couldn’t die from diseases and age? Would his immortality save him in combat? And finally: What if Barry died? God, Barry would die thinking that Oliver _hated_ him.

“Six o’clock, Arrow Dude!” the gladiator from before yelled. Oliver instantaneously reacted, firing an arrow at some werewolf that lunged out at him.

Oliver glared at the gladiator. “Do not call me Arrow Dude,” he grunted.

The gladiator smirked cheekily. “I’ll call ya my Lord and Saviour once you get me the hell outta here. Name’s Johnny by the way. What’s yours?”

No response came from Oliver. Oliver thought he was becoming a broken record. _Don’t call my base Arrow Cave. Do not call us Team Arrow. Do not call me Arrow Dude._ Every time he said ‘no way’ somebody just had to say ‘yes way’.

The gladiators plus Oliver eventually neared the exit, the large backdoor beckoning them to freedom and relative safety. The fresh air was a welcomed change from the dank and sewer-like smell of the colosseum. The gladiators didn’t hesitate to run past Oliver to their escape. He couldn’t fault them for that. He jumped on the chance to get out of Lian Yu on his fifth year there. Like literally jumped on rocks and trees. Oliver wondered what would happen to the gladiators. Perhaps the ‘buddies’ Barry was talking about would step and handle the situation.

“You’re not coming, Arrow Dude?” Johnny queried when Oliver stood still under the doorway while the gladiators rushed past him.

“No. And stop calling me Arrow Dude.” Oliver walked back to the colosseum in search of Barry.

______

You could always count on a witch to ruin your mood. Doesn’t matter if you got married, if you were having a really good day or if you were just feeling fantastic, a witch could always ruin that. Ruining Good Moods seemed like a part of their job description. To be honest, Barry wasn’t having much of a good day. But the witch made it worse.

Medea had conjured weapons, transformed objects, and basically was having the time of her life. Every time Barry got close, Medea would just stick out her hand and Barry would be blown backwards into the wall. Or seating area. Depended on the trajectory and the force of the wind.

“Is—” Barry stumbled getting up and quickly balanced himself. Medea seemed unaffected by their battle, still picture perfect and devastatingly sexy. “Is that all you got? It takes a lot more than that to put me down!”

Medea glared at him. “You’re determined to be difficult to kill, aren’t you?” The earth beneath his feet quaked. Barry sped away before it completely crumbled and several pieces of rock floated into the air, morphing into several balls of fire. The meteors came down on him like rain. Barry got singed and burned several times in the process of trying to avoid the fiery rocks.

“What can I say?” Barry said, skidding to a stop several feet away from Medea. “I’m not that easy to kill.”

Medea struck her arm out, as a plant-like ropes covered in thorns was conjured in the air surging out to catch him. He wasn’t going to get anywhere by being annoying. He would going to have to try the riskier interrogation technique. He started running … and then he let the rope wrapped around him, hoisting him up high in the air. Barry cried out as the thorns pierced his skin. The blood was going to ruin his shirt.

Medea cackled and spun around, a small tornado whirling around the lower half of her body and lifted herself up to meet Barry.

Barry put on his best frightened face. “I—I—I thought you were supposed to be dead. You supposed to be in Tartarus right now.”

“All monsters escape Tartarus,” Medea told him, her hand coming up to cup the left side of his face. “Including me.” Her nails scraped down his cheek, leaving bloody scratches in their wake. “It took me two millennia to regenerate and a few more centuries to find a way out of that hell hole but my hatred of the gods and of my former husband Jason was what drove to me to escape.”

It was amazing what being submissive could get you. You act the frightened victim, and the villain couldn’t resist soliloquizing like a Disney villain. “Th—Then Mr Mendes …”

“Nothing more than a front to lure humans and acting as my bridge between the human world and ours,” she purred, leaning in even closer to his face. Was she going to kiss him? She probably was. Beautiful, sexy female villains couldn’t resist his charm, apparently. “I must say, you are quite a handsome man. They say that Hermes is the fastest man alive but I wonder how fast his son is …” She whispered the next part in his ear, _“In bed.”_

_Uuuurrgggh …_ Somebody gag Barry. She unsheathed his drakon teeth knife from its place in his belt and held it up to his neck. A small trickle of blood bled out from where the tip of the knife made contact with his skin.

“And I wonder how much it would take for you to die, demigod.”

_SWWOOOP!_ The air whistled and there was an arrow in Medea’s wrist, forcing the witch to release Barry’s knife and shriek out in pain. _BeepBeepBeep—_ Uh oh. The arrow detonated, blowing off Medea’s hand in a great burst of sparks and smoky mist.

Barry was falling through the air, nothing to soften his landing. _Shit,_ he thought. _This is going to hurt._

_BOOOM!_ Barry crashed on the dirt, no doubt making a mini-crater. Pain spread through the back of his head all the way down to his tailbone. _Poseidon’s PANTS!_ “Ugggh,” Barry groaned. Thanks the gods for a demigod’s hardier body and quicker than mortal paced healing. He was already healing. He was _never_ going to do that again. If he could help it.

“Barry!” It was Oliver. The archer had run up to him, puffing and panting. The grease paint around his eyes was smeared and … Was he worried? The archer knelt down beside him, gently lifting his upper body off the ground. Oliver held him close to his chest. Barry could feel his racing heartbeat. “Barry, are you alright?”

“Couldn’t wait … until I was on the ground … to blow her wrist off?” Barry muttered against his chest, annoyed. Oliver huffed out a laugh and when Barry snuck a glance at the archer, he saw relief etched over Oliver’s face. “What?”

“Nothing,” Oliver said, his hold loosening around Barry. “I’m just glad you’re fine.”

“Fine is a … relative word for me … right now.”

“You blew my _HAND OFF!_ ” Medea’s shrieking voice bounced all over the stadium. Where Medea had fallen, it was through the wall of the battle arena, connected to tunnels of the colosseum. Her hair was messy, her dress was ruined and her make-up in the same state. She was positively _angry_ with Oliver and Barry and was hell-bent on making them _pay_.

“Now look what you did,” Barry moaned, wriggling out of Oliver’s hold and slowly got up. “You pissed her off.”

“I am going to kill you!” Medea angrily pointed at Barry with the only hand she had left. “And I’m going to kill your ridiculous green boyfriend!”

“What? He’s not my—” Barry said, hands waving, at the same time as Oliver protested, “We’re not dating—”

_“AARRRRRGGGGHHH!”_ she screeched before they could anything more. Blue light engulfed Medea, spinning around her to create one wide azure blue hurricane. Rocks hovered up in the air and the wind swirled around the two men. Large demonic red eyes glared at them through the torrent of the hurricane.

“Oh great,” complained Barry, rolling his eyes. He was completely dismayed at the turn of events. “You know this is a classic move for witches. Right when they are at their Villain High or if you’ve really pissed them off, they pull off a Maleficent!” Pain rushed through him due to his sudden rant. _Ouch._

“A Maleficent?” Oliver repeated, disconcerted. The hurricane dissolved and a magnificent blue-scaled dragon stood in its place, spouting out fire from its mouth and gigantic spiked wings spanning out. Thank you Disney for inspiring dozens of witches to turn into dragons when they got pissed off. “Oh, a _Maleficent._ Got it.”

“You keep her busy,” he instructed Oliver. “Don’t die.” Barry ran off, ignoring his pain, whirling past Medea and through the giant hole she made in the colosseum.

Barry searched around the cells that held the monsters, going as fast as he could. He could hear the roaring of fire and giant footsteps. He couldn’t hear Oliver though. As long as the dragon—Medea—kept making noise, it was his only indicator that the vigilante was still alive. They had to be close to the arena otherwise getting them to the battle dome would be too troublesome. _Nope, not here, not here either, shit, where are they—_

Barry found them eventually.  There were several iron barred cages, all holding deadly beasts. Nemean Lion, manticores, Colchis Bulls, the Laernan Hydra; it was like one Beastly Menagerie. The cage didn’t look big enough to hold each beast and the conditions were just abusive to the monsters. The PBC would go crazy over this. The Pro-Beast Community, not the news service. Then again the press would have a field day with the colosseum. The monsters no doubt caught the scent of a demigod, especially as one as powerful as Barry, and all eyes snapped to him in an instant, hungrily eying the prime meat that just arrived in the room.

It seemed that the monster handlers followed the tradition of starving the beasts before setting them loose in the arena for _better entertainment_. As sickening as that was, Barry found it good that he could something like that to his advantage.

The immortal took the keys that hung on a hook by the door and began unlocking all the cages. He finished in about two seconds and stood under the doorway, Barry taunted all the monsters there with, “Get your fresh meat right here!”

Barry ran for his hide. All the monsters rushed out of their cages, all eager to taste demigod flesh. He made sure not to run too fast that they would lose sight of him but fast enough that he wouldn’t be eaten alive, _again_. All the growls and whines and hissing behind him freaked him out.

Barry burst through the hole in the wall Medea made. The witch-dragon had wrecked the place. There were giant scorch marks all over the place and her footprints produced large, sizable dents in the ground. Oliver was backed against the curved wall defiantly staring down—well, up was more like it—Medea the Blue Dragon stomping towards him, prepared to burn him to a crisp. His arrow were gone and done for and he gripped his bow tightly in his hand.

“HEY, YOU CHILD-MURDERING DRAGON-WITCH BITCH!” Barry screamed, grabbing the attention of Medea. The dragon’s head turned in his direction. “OVER HERE!” Barry moved out of the way in time for the monsters chasing to come clamouring through the wall. The monsters must have caught the scent of the woman who was holding them prisoner because they were on her in a second. Revenge must be stronger than hunger, Barry mused. Barry raced over to Oliver, picking the vigilante off the ground. “Come on, Oliver,” he urged. “Get over the wall.”

Oliver jumped up, finding foot holders in places unknown to the human eye and was on the first row of seats quickly. He held his hand out for Barry to take. Barry leapt up, scrambling up the wall and taking Oliver’s hand. The green clad hoisted him up like he was just a dumbbell when he was halfway up. If they weren’t at the risk of being eaten by monsters, Barry would have awed at Oliver’s strength.

“Where to now?” Oliver squeezed Barry’s hand. Barry’s mind raced. How heavy was the vigilante? Heavier than Barry, seeing as how he’s more muscularly built than Barry and he’s got a few good inches on the immortal. If he tried to carry Oliver using his super speed then his balance is sure to be thrown off and they’ll end up tumbling on the floor.

“Try to keep up.” Barry tugged him away, Oliver yelped in surprise at the speed Barry was using, and led to one of the colosseum EXIT doors. Thank the gods the monsters had such a grudge against Medea. There was no other drive like vengeance.

The pitch-black staircase was as eerily weird as Barry had seen it last time. Instead of the light growing bigger with his dissention, the light grew dimmer as he and Oliver headed closer to the surface. A powerful roar echoed reverberated all over the walls—Medea—and quickly died out. Suddenly the walls and the ground beneath their feet rumbled violently like an earthquake. It was so violent that Barry lost his balance and slammed against the stone surface of the wall.

Oliver pulled him right and they continued their running. For Oliver, it was running. For Barry, it was like walking at slow motion. “What’s going on?”

“Medea’s gone,” Barry explained. “This place relies on her magic to keep it stable and running. It can’t do that if she’s been corporeally destroyed.”

Gods, it smelled horrible in here. Barry had been in some pretty terrible environments. In the Vietnam War, it was so hot and the air was so muggy you couldn’t breathe right. Victorian London was another place where ‘difficult to breathe’ was an understatement. The pea soup fog was so thick that Barry was thrown into a coughing fit sometimes.

Little pieces of stone fall out of place from the ceiling and  steps behind the two men crumble away into debris. Dammit. Oliver, sensing Barry’s increased stress, increased his speed. _C’monc’monhurryhurryfaster_ , Barry thought. It was all right if something happened to the immortal. Over two thousand years and being held captive by psycho mortals and monsters and spending a lot of time in war and combat had made the immortal durable. However should anything happen to Oliver …

No.

Absolutely _not_. Nothing would happen to Oliver.

This was going to sting. Barry stuck his right shoulder out and slammed straight into the locked doors at the end of the staircase, agony blossoming over his arm, and smashing straight through them, dragging Oliver behind him.

It was just his freaking luck that he collided into a _werewolf_. They had entered an alley full of creatures; nymphs, werewolves, satyrs, dracaenae, your normal mythological creature looking for entertainment. And they weren’t quite pleased to see one mortal and an immortal who reek of godly scent. Especially the Minotaur.

_OLIVER!_ His mind screamed.

Barry circled around Oliver, producing a mini hurricane around the vigilante. The few creatures that reached out, wanting to attack the two, was quickly punched in the face by Barry. Oliver floated a few meters up in the air steadily, Barry shouting, “grabthefireescapegrabthefireescapregetouttahereNOW!” on the ground. Oliver managed to make sense of Barry’s rapid speech and stuck his hand through the wind generated and caught the third floor railing of the fire escape conveniently next to him. Oliver proceeded to climb upwards to the roof, to relative safety. As long as he got away from here.

Barry ran across the surface of the opposite wall and executed a back flip long enough to catch the fire escape on the other side and leap up from there to swiftly catch up and inevitably surpassed the green clad archer. Barry grabbed Oliver’s outstretched hand and hauled him up.

He roared down to the creatures on the ground in Ancient Greek, “Fuck you, you sick, sadistic sons of bitches, and whoever created you _a HUNDRED TIMES!_ ” and then in English to Oliver in a much reserved, calmer tone, “We’re gonna have a few angry mythological creatures after us. I suggest running.”

Oliver didn’t say anything to that and they both ran away together.

______

The sight of seeing Barry’s Batman t-shirt shredded and ripped beyond recognition made a small part of Oliver grin with delighted content. It looked horrible on him anyway. Barry didn’t seem to think so. In fact, after losing the few creatures that were after them, he complained for a whole five minutes that it had costed him sixty-five dollars, how it looked so good on him, and about how Medea— _‘As in crazy witch who killed her kids to get back at her husband?’ ‘My words exactly, but the witch part said a little differently’—_ had no respect for the treasured items of glorious fan boy geeks and etc., etc.

Perhaps Oliver should get him a new shirt. Green, with an arrow on it. It would definitely look better on Barry than that black and yellow shirt did.

They sat on the rooftop of their favourite restaurant. Not exactly, but it was the place they came to eat and meet up in the last two days. Three, after today. Barry had disappeared briefly, saying something about loose ends and getting something good to eat. He was gone for ten minutes.

Oliver couldn’t comprehend what had transpired in the last few hours. It was too … fantastical. The green archer and a speedster fighting against a wicked witch and freeing the prisoners. That, and the whole Descendant of Apollo thing. Thea probably was a descendant as well. Oh god, what if she could see? Would Oliver’s involvement in the other world kick start her Sight?

“Mr Mendes is dead.” Barry had returned, holding a box of _Alfredo’s Pizza Hut_ in his hand. “He’s due for judgement in the Underworld. Medea’s popped back to Tartarus to regenerate which will take a fair few centuries. And apparently my buddies couldn’t help out, but they certainly could arrest a few people after you and I did all the work.”

Barry plopped down next to him, opening the box and taking a slice of pizza.

“You killed Carter Mendes?”

“I was ordered to kill the people responsible for this,” Barry said. “For judgement in the Underworld.” So there was an afterlife indeed. Oliver wondered where he would end up. “Mendes isn’t the first life I’ve taken. Certainly not the last.”

“I don’t do that anymore,” Oliver told him, taking a portion of the pizza and swallowing a part of it. “Kill, I mean. Killing the bad guys doesn’t necessarily mean they get punished. That they don’t fully pay for their crimes.”

Barry finished off the rest of his slice and smiled sheepishly. “That’s a nice ideology you have there. I really don’t like killing. I despise it. Taking another life … It’s something I’ve done all too much and—” Oliver caught the glimpse of hatred burning in Barry’s eyes, the flash of lightning running through them. “If I had any choice, if I was given an option to kill or not to kill, I would choose the latter.”

“Then why did you kill him?”

“My orders are absolute. Failure to co-operate will result in consequences that I’m not too fond of. Besides, it’s … a sick way of _atonement_ to my superiors.”

Atonement? “For what?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Oliver rolled his eyes and snorted. Of course not.

“But,” Barry started, gazing out to the city. “This city isn’t so bad. There are flaws and they are what make this place strangely alive. This city isn’t about the flashiness, the crime rate, or the oppression. It’s about the people who try to make the best of their situation and get past their flaws. The architecture still sucks. I mean, the Queen Consolidated Tower has to be the ugliest thing here.”

_“Hey!”_ Oliver barked out indignantly. “That’s my family’s property you’re insulting.” And Barry isn’t at all apologetic for that comment. Typical. “Okay, I can agree with you that the tower could look a little better. Maybe my face plastered across top fifty floors could do the job.”

Beside him, Barry laughed in mirth. “Oh, arrogant much? Be careful. Arrogance like that was what got that asshole Heracles killed in the first place.”

“What do you have against Hercules anyway?”

The humour in Barry’s face drained away. “ _Her-rah-klees,”_ he enunciated. “Hercules is the Roman form of his name. I’m referring to Greek mythology. He was an asshole. He hit on me, I rebuffed his advances, he didn’t take it too kindly. Zeus and his progeny rarely take rejection well.”

“I take it you don’t like the movie then.”

“Don’t mention that atrocity to me. That goes for the rest of the movies dedicated to him. Bastard totally doesn’t them. Now, a guy like Odysseus … Why haven’t there been blockbuster movies about that guy? He makes a much more compelling story than that one-dimensional ingrate. I mean, he travels on a _ship_ and he fights monsters all to get back to his love, Penelope. Dude demonstrates intelligence and I’ve read his book over a thousand times.”

“I’ve read the Odyssey thirty times,” Oliver admitted. “It’s one of my favourite reads.”

Barry’s eyes widen. “Shut. Up.”

“It’s true!” Oliver persisted, loving that star-struck look on Barry’s face. “I’ve read a bunch of other Greek stuff. The Aeneid, the Iliad, probably most of the Ancient Greek plays.”

“Have you read the Song of Achilles?” Barry asked. Oliver shook his head. No, he didn’t. “Great book. I cried at the end.”

A silent moment played out between them and Oliver decided to break it with, “This might the most honest conversation you have with me. Other than that time in the hotel.”

“I’m sorry. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the truth in the first place. Gods and monsters. Who’d believe that?”

Barry was right there.

Warily, Oliver reached out, and placed his hand on Barry’s shoulder. The contact brought back memories of the night at the Mendes’ mansion. His hand slid up to Barry’s check, holding the tender skin there delicately. Barry looked so young despite how old he was in the inside. His baby-faced appearance was so deceptive. So many layers, so many sides. Good, bad, and the grey in between. Just like Oliver.

Oliver kept on leaning closer and closer to the immortal. Barry could push him away at any time he wanted and he wasn’t. He wanted this as much as Oliver did.

“You’ll grow to regret ever meeting me eventually,” Barry whispered. Their lips were just a centimetre away from each other. Barry’s hot breath tickled Oliver’s skin. “They all do.”

“I’m not those people, Barry.”

Barry shyly smiled and brought Oliver down the rest of the way, pressing their open mouths together. Barry was no innocent to this sort of gesture. Oliver can tell he has kissed others before and pushed that thought away, not wanting his jealousy to ruin the moment. There’s no other way to describe the taste of Barry other than _godly_. It was incredible and after seconds of chaste kissing, it turned into something _more_.

Oliver brought Barry closer, his other palm pressing against the younger looking man’s waist. He doesn’t know what happened to the pizza box between them. Maybe it got pushed away because it wasn’t there to separate them. Barry climbed onto Oliver’s lap and the kiss evolved to a stage where it was full-on, heated making-out. A few days ago, Oliver never imagined kissing a younger looking man who straddled his lap on the ledge of a café rooftop decked out in his Arrow gear.

“Hey!” Some angry guy barked out. “You dropped a pizza on me!” Oliver and Barry broke apart, Barry graciously pulling Oliver’s hood back on, panting heavily, to look down to the street. Once the man recognised the familiar green figure of the Arrow, he said, “Oh, um, sorry. I’ll, err, just go.” And he walked off, not daring to sneak a backwards glance.

“Look at you, intimidating the poor people of this city,” Barry teased, grinding his pelvis against Oliver’s hips. Oliver groaned, knowing that the demigod was taunting him.

“You never did quite give me that blow job from Mendes’ mansion,” Oliver replied, nipping at Barry’s throat. “It was all I could think about that night. Your messed-up hair—” Oliver’s hand went under Barry’s shirt—“Your tongue on my skin—” Barry planted a hungry kiss on his lips that left the vigilante breathless—“But … But it was the effect afterwards that got to me. Couldn’t get you outta my head.”

“Oh, really?” Barry half-moaned. Oliver could Barry getting half-hard against his belly. “Guess what?” Barry purred in his ear, “I’ve wanted you in me since we first met.”

Oh. _Shit_.

“I normally don’t feel like this around other people. This type of—” Barry palmed Oliver’s hard-on firmly, eliciting a shocked gasp from the taller man “ _lust_ is something I’m unaccustomed to. How many times do you think I’ve fingered myself thinking about you?” _Shitshitshitshit_ —“I want to feel your cock deep inside me, all the way in, stretching me wide _open—_ ” _holyfuck_ “but—” Barry got up, dangerously dangling on the ledge and side-stepping the vigilante. That was _cruel_.Barry was wringing his hands nervously and the arousal from before gave way to sobriety. “—I’m sorry. I can’t. I told you before. I’m not good with relationships.”

“Maybe that’s because you never gave a relationship proper thought,” Oliver retorted, miffed at Barry’s cruelty. “You ass.”

Barry smirked to that, his amusement not reaching those lovely eyes of his. “Have a nice life, Oliver.”  He dashed off in a blur of black and kinetic energy. Oliver watched him go, expertly navigating through the roads and the cars. _Little. Shit._

___

It wasn’t until later when Oliver was replaying the events in his mind that he realized that Barry had said goodbye.

___

_FIN_

_For now, at least._

 

 


End file.
